Systems, devices, and methods employing the same for enhancing audience engagement in a competition or performance

ABSTRACT

Presented herein is an interactive platform for judging an activity by a participant in an event. The platform includes a client application program downloadable to a mobile device. The program may include a database storing a mobile device identifier (ID), a user ID, user information, and location data of the device. The application may further be configured to display one or more events of the activity as well as an input for receiving a score of the activity from the user. The platform may additionally include a server system connected with the client application programs via a communication network. The server system may be configured for receiving the mobile device ID, the user ID, the user information, and the location data for the client program, and may further be configured to receive the scores from the users, and to adjust the scores according to determined bias of the associated user.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation of patent application Ser. No.16/533,640, filed Aug. 6, 2019, entitled “SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND METHODSEMPLOYING THE SAME FOR ENHANCING AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT IN A COMPETITION ORPERFORMANCE”, which is a continuation of patent application Ser. No.16/425,831, filed May 29, 2019, entitled “SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND METHODSEMPLOYING THE SAME FOR ENHANCING AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT IN A COMPETITION ORPERFORMANCE”, which claims benefit of patent application Ser. No.16/115,559, filed Aug. 29, 2018, entitled “SYSTEMS, DEVICES, AND METHODSEMPLOYING THE SAME FOR ENHANCING AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT IN A COMPETITION ORPERFORMANCE”, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/567,362, filed Oct. 3, 2017 entitled “SYSTEMS,DEVICES, AND METHODS EMPLOYING THE SAME FOR ENHANCING AUDIENCEENGAGEMENT IN A COMPETITION OR PERFORMANCE”, U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/620,452, filed Jan. 22, 2018 entitled “SYSTEMS,DEVICES, AND METHODS EMPLOYING THE SAME FOR ENHANCING AUDIENCEENGAGEMENT IN A COMPETITION OR PERFORMANCE”, and U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/667,505, filed May 5, 2018 entitled “SYSTEMS,DEVICES, AND METHODS EMPLOYING THE SAME FOR ENHANCING AUDIENCEENGAGEMENT IN A COMPETITION OR PERFORMANCE”, the disclosure of which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The following description of the background of the disclosure isprovided simply as an aid in understanding the disclosed technology andis not admitted to describe or constitute prior art to the appendedclaims herein.

Entertainment and Athletic events are an important part of society. Fromchildren to teenagers to adults, a large part of modern populationsparticipate in one or more entertaining and/or athletic events. And forthose who do not actually participate in the events, the vast majorityof them, nevertheless, enjoy watching and/or listening to those who do.Entertainment events can involve various aesthetic activities, includinglistening to music, viewing art or theatrical performances, fashion, andbeauty, as well as engaging in entertaining activities, such asgambling. Performance events, such as dance or gymnastics or ballet, andthe like may be considered as both an aesthetic and an athletic event.Sports are athletic events and include ball games, such as: baseball,football, soccer, tennis, lacrosse, and the like; sports also includeman vs. man competitions, such as those events included in the Olympics,such as track and field, boxing, judo, golf, cycling, and the like; andadditionally, such events can include races, such as bike, horse, car,or boat races, and the like. Additional sporting events include waterbased competitions such as swimming, diving, surfing, and the like. Acouple of common threads that connects all of these diverse activitiesis both an aesthetic of expertise, the spirit of fair competition, andthe fact that each performer and/or competitor, team or individual, isjudged and/or the competition itself is governed by a referee.

A problem with such judging and/or refereeing is that reasonable mindsmay disagree as to whether the rules were followed by the competitors,whether the performance was at a certain level, whether a ruling wasaccurate or not, and the like. These differences can be as mild as adifference in opinion, or may indicate a discrepancy that itself may beas mild as an implicit to as worrisome as an explicit bias. In fact,these discrepancies become even more exacerbated when the specter ofbias rears its ugly head.

For instance, in certain scored events where a judge is tasked withscoring a competitor with respect to their ability to perform certainactivities at a given skill level, such as a musical/theatricalperformance or an Olympic competition, a situation sometimes occurswhere the scores of one judge seems to be out of line with the scores ofone or more of the other judges. In such instances, the viewing crowdmay feel that the competition has become unfair and/or may lose interestin continued viewing of the event, which can have dire consequences forthe promoters, sponsors, and/or advertisers of the event as well as forthe sport itself.

More particularly, crowd engagement is not only a good metric of theentertainment's or sport's popularity, it is also a necessary componentfor attracting the most skilled and competent participants, as the morefan engagement there is, the more advertisers will be willing to pay tosponsor such events, and the more competitors may gain by theirparticipation in the competition. Likewise, the more competitive theperformance or competition is, the more exciting it will be to watch,and, thus, the more fans will want to view the event, which in turn willlead to greater amount of advertiser dollars being spent to sponsor suchevents in the future. However, where there is little to no audienceinteraction, there is likely going to be declining audience engagement.And further, where there is a lack of real-time transparency in thejudging process, coupled with a lack of uniformity between judgescoring, the competitors are left to the mercy of the judges, andaudience engagement suffers, along with sponsorship, due to perceivedbias.

Such bias comes in many forms. For example, such bias may occur when onejudge has a previous relationship with a participant; where a judgewishes to curry favor with a participant; where a sponsor has an undueinfluence on one or more judges. Or such bias may occur from thoseseeking financial, political, and/or for social gain, and in view ofthis a judge allows his or her scoring to be directed not exclusively bythe particular participants' performance, but by other, externalfactors. Such bias, e.g., due to secrecy and a lack of transparency injudging, leaves the performers and/or competitors at the mercy of thebiasness of the judges.

Accordingly, what is needed are the means and methods for increasingviewing engagement amongst a crowd of spectators, promoting fairness andenhancing sponsorship as well as more targeted advertising, while at thesame time increasing transparency in competition, and decreasing biasamongst the judging faculty. In essence, entertainments, competitions,and the judging of such, needs to be modernized in a manner that moregreatly involves the viewer, the participants, sponsors, and/oradvertisers and their interactions, as much more intimate and intrinsicpartners in the event. The present devices, systems, as well as theirmethods of use have been configured to overcome these and other suchproblems in the art. Accordingly, the goal of the technologies describedherein is to solve these and other such problems faced by eventorganizers, sponsors, advertisers, and/or the audience of such events,for instance, to promote audience and participant engagement andminimize bias in the judging of such events.

SUMMARY

Hence, in various instances, implementations of various aspects of thedisclosure may include, but are not limited to: apparatuses, systems,and methods of their use including one or more features as described indetail herein, as well as articles that comprise a tangibly embodiedmachine-readable medium operable to cause one or more machines (e.g.,computers, etc.) to result in operations described herein. Similarly,computer systems are also described that may include one or moreprocessors and/or one or more memories coupled to the one or moreprocessors. Accordingly, computer implemented methods consistent withone or more implementations of the current subject matter can beimplemented by one or more data processors residing in a singlecomputing system or multiple computing systems containing multiplecomputers, such as in a computing or supercomputing bank.

Such multiple computing systems can be connected and can exchange dataand/or commands or other instructions or the like via one or moreconnections, including but not limited to a connection over a network(e.g. the Internet, a wireless wide area network, a local area network,a wide area network, a wired network, a physical electricalinterconnect, or the like), via a direct connection between one or moreof the multiple computing systems, etc. A memory, which can include acomputer-readable storage medium, may include, encode, store, or thelike one or more programs that cause one or more processors to performone or more of the operations associated with one or more of thealgorithms described herein.

The details of one or more variations of the subject matter describedherein are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the descriptionbelow. Other features and advantages of the subject matter describedherein will be apparent from the description and drawings, and from theclaims. While certain features of the currently disclosed subject matterare described for illustrative purposes in relation to an enterpriseresource software system or other business software solution orarchitecture, it should be readily understood that such features are notintended to be limiting. The claims that follow this disclosure areintended to define the scope of the protected subject matter.

Accordingly, in one aspect, presented herein are systems, apparatuses,and methods for implementing an interactive, crowd-sourced judgingand/or scoring platform that is configured for both enabling andencouraging audience and/or participant engagement when sharing in,e.g., as an observer or performer, an athletic event, theatricalperformance, and/or any other form of competitive interaction or sourceof entertainment. Particularly, it is understood that many people enjoywatching competitions and/or entertaining performances, however, thereare others who do not, or grow bored doing so throughout the course ofthe event. Hence, crowd engagement with an observed event may start offstrong, but through the course of the day, as the event progresses,audience participation and engagement may begin to wane. The devices,systems, and their methods of use, as provided herein, are adapted forenhancing and improving such engagement through providing mechanisms andmethods for more immediate and collective fan participation in theevent, thereby promoting a social collaboration between participantactors, e.g., those performing the event, and participant scorers, e.g.,those informally judging the event. More particularly, such interactionsare enhanced through use of real-time polling, voting, and sharing ofcontemporaneous results data and commentary, and the predictiveanalysis, and/or betting opportunities proffered by the present systems.Additionally, the devices, systems, and methods of using the same, asdisclosed herein, are adapted for making the judging and/or scoring ofcompetitive events, be they sporting events, theatrical performances, oreven election results (e.g., official and/or unofficial), more engaging,as real-time results are obtained in an ongoing manner, but also moretransparent and accurate, such as by keeping the judging and/or votingsystem more honest.

Accordingly, in one aspect, presented herein is a platform forgenerating user interaction with a system, such as where the system isdirected to engage with or present an event, such as an athletic orother entertainment event. In these instances, a user may be anspectator, e.g., a fan, a participant or performer, an event organizer,a sponsor, an advertiser, or other interested third party, any of whichcan be termed an observer or participant or actor, based on thecontextual circumstances. Consequently, the platform is organized in amanner so as to engage a passive spectator, or other observer, andconvert them to being an engaged viewer, and further into an activeinfluencer with respect to the platform, and/or into a passionate fan ofthe platform, its activities, and the events in which it engages. In amanner such as this a spectator not only observes but becomes a fan ofthe event, such as by becoming more of a participant, such as a judge, ascorer, and/or a commentator of the event through the mechanisms of theplatform, its systems, and devices. In essence, in certain instances,the goal of the platform is to allow observers to become participants inthe events to which they watch, such as by becoming part of the action,such as through liver interaction and/or communication with the platformsystem.

Further, in various instances, audience engagement may be enhancedthrough one or more rewards, betting, and/or gambling regimes, which aredirected to rewarding audience participation, actor participation,and/or judging consistency, and/or for allowing the audience to be moreintimately engaged in the course and outcome of the performance and/orevent. Additionally, one or more of the tools set forth herein can beused to promote fairness in judging, but also may be used to betterpromote more relevant advertisement generation and distribution, such asto better target participant consumers and reward participant actors whoare sponsored. For instance, the identity as well as the coordinates ofmobile devices, and their users, are very powerful tools that may beemployed in conjunction with the systems and their methods of usedisclosed herein so as to make the often-subjective judging of athleticand/or performance events less subjective, and more objective, which inturn, can provide a more objective measure of sponsorship performance ofthe actor.

Particularly, an analysis of the representation of the participants andtheir performance in the event, can better quantify the results of thatsponsorship, allowing them to be identified as a high performer worthyto be awarded a higher level of sponsorship. Thus, bringing more moneyto the participant performer as well as into the event. For example, inaccordance with the present disclosure, a mobile communication device,such as a handheld cellular telephone, may be used, by an observer of anevent, such as an athletic or performance event and/or competition, toengage in, to score, or otherwise provide commentary on the event and/orits competitors, which input can be quantified and qualified by thesystem, and fed back to the event organizers and sponsors therebyallowing them to better determine fan engagement, participant following,and their return on sponsorship investment.

As will be described in greater detail herein below, the present devicesand methods allow for the observer to be more intimately involved in theevent, its participants, organizers, sponsors, and advertisers, andtheir interactions. Further, by use of the identity of the observer, thedevice, and/or its coordinates, user engagement may be enhanced and/oruseful information may be provided for determining bias in the judgingand/or scoring of various participants in the event. Specifically, invarious embodiments, those identities and coordinates may be used toidentify subjective information that may then be run through ananalytics module, such as an Artificial Intelligence (A/I) engine, whichmay be configured for performing both a learning function, such asthrough review of historic data, and to generate rules by which todetermine bias in future scoring patterns, and/or predict futureoutcomes of such events. Likewise, the A/I engine may include a deeplearning functionality that is configured for determining patternrecognition, such as with respect to patterns of actions, actors,observers, faces, and/or design elements, such as logos and/or otherelements capable of being trademarked. The agents and/or elements can betracked throughout the system relative to the event, the patternsidentified, quantified, and qualified, statistically analyzed, andpertinent results presented, such as results pertinent to one or moresponsors, advertisers, and/or advertisements generated. In a manner suchas this, a sponsor or advertiser can track how well its brand and brandrepresentatives are tracked through the event, such as via the system.

For instance, personal data of the observer of an event, e.g., which maybe private or publically available data, using the interactive, e.g.,scoring, device, such as a suitably configured mobile telephone; as wellas personal data of the event participants, including the competitorsand the judges, may be collected, searched, and may be run through asuitably configured analytics module, such as an artificial intelligenceengine, to identify subjective information from various differentsources that may be in some way correlated with one another, andtherefore, may be a source of potential bias in the judging and/orscoring regime. Particularly, the data from all various sources may becollected and organized in a structure that is specifically designed topinpoint correlations between otherwise unknown relationships. Such arelational architecture may take many forms, such as in the form of aStructured Query Language (SQL), Hierarchical Tree, or Knowledge Graphdatabase. Likewise, the system may track and collect the number ofinstances where a sponsored representative or sponsor identifier isobserved by the system, and further track fan engagement therewith, soas to quantify and qualify that representation.

Collected information, for example, may be run through one or morecomputational and/or analytics regimes, as herein described, so as toidentify pertinent known or inferred data points from which variousrelationships between participants and/or sponsors engaged with thesystem may be determined, and/or discrepancies in their performance,scoring, and/or commentaries on an event or performance may beidentified, thereby making the judging of events more “real-time”transparent, less secretive, and any bias relatively apparent.Specifically, as explained below, in its basic form, the system includesa network associable server that is communicably coupled to one or moreuser devices, upon which a user can act, so as to participate in aviewable event. More specifically, a user can engage a client device,such as a mobile computing device, by pulling up a downloadableapplication or “APP”, logging in their to, selecting a geographicalregion within which to participate, and further select an event to watchand/or otherwise engage in. The server may identify the user by thelogin and/or the device by its identification, as well as their relativelocations. The system may then identify if the user is within theacceptable geographical region, and if so may allow the user to engagewith the event, such as by using the APP to score, comment on, orotherwise participate with the platform with respect to the selectedevent. Particularly, once logged on, the user can be presented a currentcompetitor or performer, and can evaluate the performance, such as byentering a score or other evaluation thereof. This may be performed fora plurality of users. Consequently, once a number of scores for theperformance of competitors in an event are collected, they may bepooled, weighted, and tallied, as described below, such as by undergoingone or more analytic protocols and/or processing by the artificialintelligence engine disclosed herein. From these analyses, correcteddata, such as mean weighted or average or other statistically relevantscores and evaluations may be generated for the performer and/or theevent, which data may then be fed back into the system and/or displayedon the various different client devices of those participating in theevent.

Accordingly, in one aspect, presented herein is a system including aninteractive, communication platform that is adaptable so as to providefor crowd-source communications while concurrently participating in,e.g., as a judge or scorer, of an athletic event, or performance, orother competition. In particular embodiments, the communicationsplatform may be configured for allowing participation in, e.g., judgingand/or scoring, an activity, such as an athletic activity, competition,performance, or the like, by one or more participants of an event, suchas an observer, a scorer, a competitor, or any other person in the crowdhaving access to the technology. In such an instance, the platform mayinclude one or more, e.g., a plurality, of client application programs,e.g., running on a mobile device, and a server system through which theclient applications of the mobile devices may communicate with oneanother and/or the system. The system may also include one or more of ananalytics module, for performing data analysis; and an artificialintelligence module, for generating a searchable data structure, e.g., aknowledge graph, through which data may be correlated, relationshipsdetermined or inferred, and future behaviors, e.g., bias, may bepredicted. Additionally, in certain instances, a targeted advertisementmodule may also be associated with and/or otherwise coupled to theanalytics module, e.g., an inference and/or A/I engine, and associatedmedia containing database, so as together to form a real-timeadvertisement generation mechanism, whereby one or more advertisementsmay be generated and transmitted to one or more users of the system,e.g., based on a user profile determined for them by the A/I system. Asindicated, these advertisements may be generated such as based on theneed or payment of sponsors that seek to increase their presence in theevent, or based on its relevance to the target recipient, e.g.,determined by their use of the system, and/or may be determined bygeographical relevance.

Particularly, in one configuration, the system includes a plurality ofclient application programs, e.g., “APPs,” which may be provided anddistributed to a corresponding plurality of mobile devices, where eachof the devices has an interactive display, such as a capacitive sensingtouch screen display. For instance, the various processes of the systemmay be implemented by a computing system that includes a back-endcomponent, e.g., as a data server, being communicably associated with adatabase, or that includes a middleware component, e.g., an applicationserver, or that includes a front end component, e.g., a client computerhaving a graphical user interface or a Web browser through which a usercan interact with an implementation of the methods of the system, or anycombination of such back end, middleware, or front end components. Forexample, a computer system may be provided where the computer systemincludes a remote server system, e.g., which may include a server and/ora desktop or laptop computer, and/or a client computer, such a mobiletelephone device running a client application. Typically, the server andclient are remote from each other and generally interact through acommunication network. Hence, the components of the system can beinterconnected by any form or medium of digital data communication,e.g., a communication network. Examples of communication networksinclude a local area network (“LAN”) and a wide area network (“WAN”),e.g., the Internet. Particularly, the relationship of server and clientarises by virtue of computer programs or firmware, e.g., softwareprograms and applications, or hardware configurations, running on therespective computers and having a client-server relationship to eachother. In this instance, the client application may be an applicationprogram including machine instructions that, when executed by aprocessor cause the processor to perform certain programed functions, asherein described.

More particularly, the client application may be a downloadable softwareapplication that is adapted for being downloaded onto a client device,and configured for directing a host processor(s) of that device toperform one or more predetermined functions, including the presentationof a client interface, through which interface data may be inputted,transmitted, and received. For instance, the client application may beconfigured for directing data transmission, through the endogenouscommunications module of the client device, back and forth e.g., betweenthe device and a host server via the application. In certainembodiments, the system is configured for receiving and transmittingdata to and from a plurality of client devices, such as a multiplicityof communication devices, e.g., desktop computers and/or handheldcellular phones, running the same or similar programming. Hence, in suchembodiments, one or more, e.g., each, of the software implementations,e.g., client application programs, which may be run on a handheldcommunication device, may be configured with a device, e.g., mobiledevice, identifier (ID), for providing a unique device identifier forthe device. In particular instances, the client application program ofthe mobile device further includes one or more of a user ID of a userassociated with the mobile device, information about the user, and/orlocation data representing a location of the user and/or mobile device.

Specifically, in various use models, each client application program maybe configured to generate an interactive user interface that may beconfigured for being displayed on the interactive display of the mobiledevice. Specifically, in certain instances, the interactive userinterface may display one or more activities of one or more events to beor being observed. More specifically, the client user interface may be agraphical display for presenting an input mechanism, e.g., a scoringmatrix, to the user through which one or more inputs, e.g., scores orcommentary, may be entered, via the user interacting with the scorematrix graphic, and thereby being input into the system. In particularembodiments, the graphical user interface can be presented based on adetermined language preference, such as English, Spanish, Portuguese,French, German, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and thelike. Hence, in a manner such as this, users of the devices of thesystem may evaluate, e.g., score, the activities of one or morecompetitors or performers engaging in the event(s). In such an instance,the evaluation may include a time and/or geographical stamp and/orjudging data, e.g., scores or commentary, representing the scoringand/or judging of the activity by the user. In certain instances, thescoring and/or commenting may be in accordance with one or morepredetermined judging categories and/or scales, such as a matrixconfigured in the corresponding client application program.

Hence, in various embodiments, a method for receiving a score from aclient device is provided. In certain instances, the client device mayinclude a downloadable application or APP that is configured forpresenting a user interface for allowing a user to enter a score or anevaluation of a performer in a competition, such as where the qualityand/or quantity of the score is at least partially dependent on theuser's location. Accordingly, the method may include locating anindividual user within a geographical region, where the method is to beimplemented by the application running on the client device, such as ahandheld mobile device where the handheld mobile device has a uniquedevice identification (RFID) code. In such an instance, the method mayinclude generating, e.g., by the application running on the handheldmobile device, an interactive user interface on the handheld mobiledevice being operated by a first user. The method may further includereceiving, over a communication network, via the interactive userinterface on the handheld mobile device, an input, e.g., regarding anevaluation or score. In various instances, the input may include otherdata, as well as the score, such as user identification data, deviceidentification data, geolocation data, as well as other usercharacteristic and/or meta data associated therewith.

Accordingly, once the score has been entered into the device, e.g., viathe downloadable application, the method may include sending, over thecommunication network, by the application running on the handheld mobiledevice, the unique device identification code to a server system forauthenticating the user, the device, and/or the authenticity of theevaluations and/or scores being entered by the user, e.g., via thedevice identification code. In such an instance, the method may includereceiving, over the communication network, by the server system, theinput evaluation and/or score, the geolocation data locating the deviceand/or its user, such as within a predetermined geographical region; andassociating, by at least one of the user device and the server system,the input data with time-stamp data so as to generate time and placedata for the user, the device and the evaluation. Likewise, the methodmay include transmitting, from the server system, over the communicationnetwork for presentation to the user via the user interface on themobile communication device, one or more of the user entered score, theaverage entered score of a collection of users, and/or the officialscore entered by one or more official judges of the event, as well asone or more results of a statistical analysis thereof. Various metadatamay also be transmitted with respect to the data, such as time and placedata with respect to score entry may also be included, although notnecessarily displayed. Hence, in various instances, the method mayinclude displaying, on the interactive user interface on the handheldmobile device, the entered evaluation or score.

As indicated, the APP may be a downloadable application and as such themethod may include downloading the application from a website associatedwith the server system. In various instances, the APP may be downloadedon to a mobile device, such as a smart phone or watch. Accordingly, thesystem may include a client device, such as where the client device maybe any intelligent device such as a mobile phone, or watch, or bracelet,or the like, and thus, in various instances, the method may includeentering data into the client device, such as via entry at a display ofthe mobile device, or via voice command. For instance, the mobile devicemay include a voice activated input module that is configured forrecognizing the voice of a user, the voice prompting an activation ofthe device, which in response thereto activates the device to receiveand record an input, in view of which input the device may interpret theinput into a set of instructions directly, or may send the instructionsto a central server for interpretation, which will then send theinstructions back to the client device for implementation. In such aninstance, the method may then include implementation of the instructionsparsed from the received voice commands. Particularly, the method mayinclude receiving a voice command, converting the voice command intoinstructions regarding an input, implementing those instructions, andtransmitting the results thereof back to the central server. In certaininstances, the input involves scoring a competitors actions in an event,which score then gets transmitted to the server.

Accordingly, the system may include a server system, wherein a server ofthe system is connectable to one or more of the associated client, e.g.,mobile, devices via the plurality of client application programs, suchas over a communication, e.g., cellular and/or Internet network. Theconnection may be such that it synchronizes the mobile device(s) withthe server and at a time during which the activities of the event orperformance are taking place. In such an instance, the server system maybe configured for receiving one or more of the mobile device ID(s), theuser ID(s), the user(s) information, and/or the location data for eachuser of the one more client programs. Further, the server system mayalso be configured to authorize a number of users, so as to allow themto participate in, e.g., score, the event; receive the scores inputtedfrom the authorized users; and for adjusting the scores to produce afileted score, as necessary. For example, filtering may occur so as totake account of the timing and/or geography by which the score wasentered, e.g., due to a time stamp associated with each score, and/or totake into account any determined bias of a score by an associated,authorized user. Particularly, in certain instances, the server may beconfigured for collecting, collating, and/or generating an aggregatedscore, such as from the filtered scores, for transmission to each of theplurality of client application programs and/or for display in theinteractive display with respect to the one or more activities of theevent(s), such as via substantially “real-time” results transmission.

In another aspect, an apparatus for evaluating, judging, and/or scoringand/or commentating on an activity, such as of a participant in acompetition, is provided. For example, the apparatus may be a computingdevice, such as a desktop, laptop, or mobile computing device, such astablet computing device or handheld mobile communications device, or thelike, which is configured so as to allow an observer to view, evaluate,score, judge, and/or comment on an activity or action of a participantof the event being viewed. In such an instance, the system may beconfigured such that a multiplicity of such apparatuses are capable ofobserving and/or voting, scoring, commenting on, and/or judging an eventor competition, such as in conjunction with one or more other apparatuspossessed by other observers. In such instances, each of the apparatusesmay include a mobile electronic device that has at least one processor,a transceiver to communicate with a communications network, and adisplay. In particular instances, the apparatus may be communicablycoupled to a server system, such as over a suitably configuredcommunications network.

Particularly, in various embodiments, the apparatus may be a mobilecommunications device, such as a hand held cellular phone, which in thisinstance, may be operable by an observer of an athletic event orperformance. The apparatus may include an application program that maybe executed by at least one processor of the cellular phone. In certainembodiments, the application is configured for executing one or moreprocesses, such as including an authenticating and/or a locatingprocess, such as for authenticating the operator of the mobile device,e.g., the observer of the event, based on one or more of a deviceidentifier, associated with the mobile electronic device; a useridentifier; associated with the observer; and/or a determinedgeolocation of the mobile electronic device, the geolocation beingdefined by a geographic area for the activity.

A further process for operation by the processor(s) of the cellularphone is the generating, e.g. on the display of the mobile electronicdevice, a graphical representation of a participant, e.g. competitor, ofthe activity; a scoring matrix, for scoring the activities of theparticipant competitor; and/or a time-based component for theperformance of that activity. Particularly, the processor may generate,at a user interface, a graphical representation of an evaluation matrixor pad, for presentation on the display, through which evaluationinterface or pad a user, e.g., the observer, may input an evaluationsuch as a score, the score representing an evaluation of the quality ofthe participant's activities. Additionally, the processor may further beconfigured for receiving an inputted evaluation, once it has beenselected and/or entered by the user, and thereby inputted into thesystem; and may further be configured for transmitting, by thetransceiver of the mobile electronic device, the score to a server, suchas for aggregation with other evaluations or scores from otherobservers. Likewise, once one or more evaluations or scores or commentshave been entered into the system, aggregated, and/or corrected, e.g.,by the server system, they may be transmitted back to the variousassociated mobile devices, e.g., via a suitably configured receiver, fordisplay, at the display of the mobile electronic device, where theevaluation or score may represent an aggregated evaluation or score forthe activity based on the evaluations and scores received by theobserver and the other evaluations or scores received from the otherobservers within the geographic and/or time-based component.

More particularly, in various instances, the mobile communicationdevice, may be a cellular telephone or other mobile computing devicethat is configurable for the scoring of a participant in a competitiveactivity. For instance, the mobile scoring device may include one ormore of the following. The mobile scoring device may include ageolocation element, such as a GPS or other locating mechanism, which isconfigured for determining the location of the device. An antenna mayalso be included for exchanging signals with one or more othercommunicable devices, such as over a communication, e.g., wireless,network. The mobile communication device may also include an inputdevice via which a user may input information. The input device may be areal, e.g., a physical device, or virtual, e.g., a graphicalrepresentation of an input mechanism, e.g., such as a virtual button,toggle, or touch pad. The mobile device may also include a display, suchas a capacitive sensing touch screen display for providing information,e.g., a user interface, to a user of the mobile scoring device. Aprocessor for sending and receiving signals, e.g., exchanged by theantenna, may also be included, where the processor is operably connectedwith a memory for storing an application program, e.g., an “APP.” The“APP” may be an application that includes machine instructions such thatwhen executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform thevarious process functions disclosed herein.

These processes, for operation by the processor of the device, e.g., perinstruction by the APP, may include: determining, via the GPS, thelocation of the device within a geographic area; generating, via theapplication running on the mobile device, a user interface for displayon the device; prompting, via the user interface, the user to enter ascore and/or commentary for an action performed by the participant inthe competitive activity; and transmitting, via a suitably configuredcommunications module, the input, and other associated data to a serverof the system. In various instances, the other associated data mayinclude one or more of the identity of the device, e.g., Device ID, theidentity of the user, e.g., User ID, and the geographical location ofthe device. Other data, such as time elapse data, and/or other relateddata, e.g., event data, may also be transmitted. Hence, the mobilecommunication device may be configured for transmitting the geolocationof the mobile device, the user's identity, the device identity, and theinputted score and/or commentary from the user to a server system overthe communication network via the device antenna.

Accordingly, in various instances, the system may include a server thatis configured for receiving, over the communications network, theinformation specifying the user's identity, the identity of the device,the geographical location, and the user inputted score, and/or otherassociated data, e.g., event data, over the communications module of thedevice, e.g., via the APP. Once received, by the server system, theserver may then evaluate the data, such as for bias, for instance, bydetermining if the inputted score fits within a mean score range tothereby determine bias. If bias is determined, the server system maythen adjust the score, such as based on the mean score range therebyrendering a final score by the user of the action performed by theparticipant. Once a final score has been rendered by the system, theserver may then transmit the rendered final score back to the userdevice, such as for presentation, via the user interface of the APP, onthe display of the device.

In various embodiments, the system may be configured for authenticatingthe user, e.g., via the user ID, for determining whether the user isauthorized to score the event, and/or for authenticating whether thetime stamp for the scoring, e.g., via a determined geolocation with timeidentifier, fits within a determined window of opportunity within whichscores may be received and entered into the system for consideration bythe server. In such an instance, it is only after authentication, e.g.,verification, of the user and/or the time stamp that the inputted scoreswill be considered by the system. Further, as indicated, along with theuser and device ID, geolocation, and time stamp data, other associateddata may be entered into or otherwise be received and/or considered bythe system. For instance, in various instances, the system may beconfigured for receiving, e.g., over the communications network. Suchdata may be any useful data associated with the user, an event, and/orone or participants and/or sponsors thereof. For example, a database ofthe server system may receive or otherwise include social media data ofthe users, judges, competitors, event organizers, and/or sponsors of thesystem. Such social media data may be that which is directly enteredinto the system, e.g., by filling out electronic forms, or collected bythe system through a search of readily available databases, such asthose associated with FACEBOOK®, INSTAGRAM®, TWITTER®, FLICKR®,PINTEREST®, FOURSQUARE®, and other online or public information storingresources. Specifically, the system may be configured for performing asearch of identified online accessible databases for informationregarding participants in the system to identify data that may berelevant for determining relationships there between and/or fordetermining bias thereby.

Correspondingly, another aspect of the disclosure is directed to acomputer program product for implementing the various processes andsub-processes of the system. For instance, a computer program may beprovided wherein the program includes a machine-readable medium storingmachine instructions that, when executed by a scoring device or serverof the system, e.g., having one or more programmable processors, causethe device and/or server system to perform the programed functions.These functions may include one or more of the following: the receiving,e.g., over a communication network, such as from a mobile device, andthe processing of data. The data may be score data, such as datapertaining to characterizing and/or evaluating a participant in anactivity being performed in an event within a defined geographical area.Other data that may be received and processed by the system includesuser and mobile device identification data, as well as geolocationand/or time elapse data, so as to authenticate the user and/or theuser's location. Such data may be received at the mobile deviceautomatically or via a user interface presented by an application, e.g.,APP, that runs on the mobile device. Accordingly, another process thatmay be implemented by the system include authenticating the user and theuser's location, e.g., based on the user and the mobile deviceidentifier, to verify that the user is authorized to score the activity.

Additionally, a computer program product of the system may be configuredfor causing the device and/or server system to access a database, e.g.,storing information pertaining to the activity, where the accessingincludes identifying a plurality of participants in the activity, aswell as identifying one or more users scoring the actions of theparticipants, such as where the one or more users have a physicallocation within the defined geographical area and are authorized toscore the activity, which authenticating, as indicated, may includevalidating the identity of the user, the identity of the user's device,and/or the geographic location of the user and/or their device. Onceaccessed, this information, e.g., the user's identification, theidentification of the device, and/or the location, may be associatedwith other relevant information entered into or stored within thedatabase. The relevant information may also include data pertaining tothe user, the participant, the event, one or more judges of the event,such as social media data, such as postings, that include or referenceone or more of these factors. This data, in addition to the scoringdata, may be evaluated, such as by the scoring device and/or serversystem may be retrieved from the database and evaluated such as forcorrelations and/or relationships between the data. Such correlationsand/or relationships may then be used to determine possible bias, suchas where the evaluating may include determining a mean and/or averageand further determining if the score by the user fits within thedetermined mean score range of the one or more inputted scores, such asfrom a selected number of users of the system. Further, where such biasis determined the score may be adjusted, e.g., by the scoring device andserver system, so as to render a final evaluation and/or score of theparticipant's activities by the user. Furthermore, once the final scorehas been rendered, such as by the server system, it may be transmitted,e.g., over the communication network, such as for presentation to theuser via the user interface on the mobile communication device, or viceversa, such as where the final score represents an adjusted and/oraggregated score of the activity.

Further, in accordance with the above, a method is provided forevaluating and/or scoring a participant in a competitive or entertainingactivity. The following steps of the method may be performed in anylogical order, and may be performed pursuant to machine instructionsimplemented by a processor the scoring device and/or the server system.Accordingly, the method for execution by a device of the system mayinclude receiving, e.g., at a server system, over a communicationnetwork, from the mobile device, or vice versa, one or more userinputted preliminary evaluations or scores of the participant in thecompetitive activity, such as a competitive activity being performedwithin a defined geographical area. In various instances, in order toevaluate and/or score participants in the competitive or performanceactivity, an evaluation and/or scoring matrix may be presented to theuser, e.g., as a graphical interface, on a display of the mobile deviceand/or server system, whereby a preliminary evaluation or score may beentered into the device by a user, e.g., a scorer or judge of the event.In various instances, the evaluation or scoring matrix may be generatedby a user interface and may be formed as a template by which eachparticipants' activities may be scored by the user. Hence, thepreliminary evaluation or score may be received via a user interfacepresented at a display of the device and/or server. The method mayfurther include authenticating, e.g., by the device and/or serversystem, user authentication data, so as to verify an identity of theuser, such as by a user identifier or an identity of the mobile device;and may further include determining whether the scoring is taking placewithin a defined geographical area.

The method may then include accessing, e.g., by a device or the serversystem, a database storing the evaluation or scoring matrix, such aswhere the matrix includes one or more of an identity of the event, thecompetitive activity, and a competitor of the competitive activity, aswell as an identity of the participants in the competitive activity, anidentity of each authenticated user scoring the competitive activity, alist of actions by which each participant's actions are to be evaluatedand scored, and the preliminary evaluations inputted to the matrix byeach authenticated user evaluating and scoring the competitive activity.Hence, the method may include aggregating, e.g., by the evaluationdevice and/or the server system, the preliminary evaluations and scoresinputted to the matrix, such as by each authenticated user, so as togenerate a mean and/or average or other statistically relevant parameterscore range and/or a final score or evaluation. Once a mean, median,mode, and/or average evaluation or score is determined, the evaluationdevice and/or server system may evaluate the one or more preliminaryevaluations or scores inputted by the user for bias, such as where theevaluating includes determining if the preliminary evaluation or scoreinputted by each user fits within the average and/or mean evaluationrange to thereby determine bias. Additionally, if bias is determined,the user's inputted preliminary evaluation or score may be adjusted tothereby render a final evaluation of the participant's activities by theuser, which adjusted final evaluation and/or score or commentary may betransmitted, over a communication network for presentation to the uservia the user interface, e.g., on the scoring device and/or serversystem.

Accordingly, in view of the above, the present disclosure is directed todevices, systems, and their method use for evaluating and/or scoring aperformer's activities in an event, such as by a plurality of usersemploying a graphical user interface of a plurality of client devices,such as where the scores may be aggregated, statistically analyzed,and/or checked for bias, such as where some evaluations or scores maydiscounted or discarded, e.g., where bias is determined, but where thosethat are accepted are aggregated, and the results may be transmittedback to the client device for display. Along with these scores theaverage of the crowd score and/or the judge's score may be sent as well.

As discussed herein, bias may be determined by determining trends in theindividual's evaluations and/or scoring that reveal bias, such as wherethe individual user always scores below or above the crowd, e.g., forsome performers, or always votes the same as a block of other users,votes from a distance from the event, or votes outside of a predefinedtime window, or has social connections with competitors or judges asdetermined by the system such as by image recognition of social mediaweb pages, etc. In certain instances, the scores may be discounted ordiscarded if they were entered into a device where the device isdetermined to be located outside of a predefined geographical region, orif they were entered at a time that is determined to be outside of thedetermined timeout window, such as where the timeout window may bedetermined manually, such as by a system administrator, automatically,based upon one or more pre-set conditions occurring, such as theinitiation of an auxiliary machine, or dynamically determined by anartificial intelligence module of the system.

For instance, the opening and the closing of the time window may bedetermined manually by a system administrator who is watching the event,and opens the scoring window when a performer begins their performance,and then closes the window when the performer ceases their performance.Alternatively, the system may open the timeout window in a more dynamicmanner, such as where the system collects the entered scores as theycome in, and it is determined at what time the highest number of scoresare entered, e.g., at the greatest number or velocity, the system maythen set the window parameters based on that time, and those scoresentered too soon and too late, based on that selected time, may then berejected. In various instances, the system may include a wearable userdevice, which may be worm by the performer and may be configured fordetecting and/or determining the characteristics of the movements of theuser, or the system may include a smart image capturing device, e.g.,video camera, that is configured for detecting the movement of aperformer, such that when the characteristic movement for beginning aperformance is detected the timeout window is opened, and when thecharacteristic movements for ending a performance are detected, thetimeout window is closed. Additionally, the window can be opened andclosed by a combination of the above.

In various embodiments, the system may be configured for ensuring thatonly one person gets one vote, such as by identifying the user by theirlogin, user or device identification, and/or their location, e.g., GPS,data, etc. The system may also be configured for ensuring that thescores or votes being entered are accurate, and thus may includeprogramming for appropriately weighing the scores along a variety ofcharacteristics. In particular instances, the system may be configuredfor receiving and/or broadcasting a video feed from a user of a clientdevice, such as a mobile smart phone, such as a video recorded on aphone where the phone processor accesses that recording and transmits itover network to an encoder, the encoder formats the captured video intoa HTTP-based live stream, which then gets transmitted to the server andthen directed to back to the recording and/or other client devices thathave signed up to receive the stream. This allows local users to filmand broadcast a local event, such as amongst friends.

The summary of the disclosure described above is non-limiting and otherfeatures and advantages of the disclosed apparatus and methods will beapparent from the following detailed description of the disclosure, andfrom the claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A shows a user interface in which the user of a downloadableclient application enters an alpha and/or numerical, e.g., four-digit,pass code to log in as a user of the downloadable client application.

FIG. 1B shows a user interface in which the user of the clientapplication creates a user account.

FIG. 1C shows a user interface for a user of a client application of thesystem of the disclosure.

FIG. 1D shows a user interface in which the user of the clientapplication is shown a welcome screen following the creation of anaccount with the application.

FIG. 2 shows an event screen of a user interface for a user of a clientapplication of a mobile device of the system of the disclosure.

FIG. 3A shows a set-up screen for an event at a user interface of aclient application of a mobile device of the system of the disclosure.

FIG. 3B shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 3A for anevent accessible via the user interface of the client application of themobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 3C shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 3A for anevent accessible via the user interface of the client application of themobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 3D shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 3A for anevent accessible via the user interface of the client application of themobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 3E shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 3A for anevent accessible via the user interface of the client application of themobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 3F shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 3A for anevent accessible via the user interface of the client application of themobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 4A shows a set-up screen for judge of the system, where the set-upscreen is accessible via the user interface of the client application ofthe mobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 4B shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 4A for ajudge, where the set-up screen is accessible via the user interface ofthe client application of the mobile device of the system of thedisclosure.

FIG. 4C shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 4A for ajudge, where the set-up screen is accessible via the user interface ofthe client application of the mobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 5A shows a set-up screen for a location of an event, where theset-up screen is accessible via the user interface of the mobile deviceof the system of the disclosure.

FIG. 5B shows another version of the set-up screen of FIG. 5A for thelocation of the event, where the set-up screen is accessible via theuser interface of the client application of the mobile device of thedisclosure.

FIG. 5C shows an event location identifier for the event, where theevent location screen is accessible via the user interface of the clientapplication of the mobile device of the disclosure.

FIG. 5D shows a user interface in which the user may enable the clientapplication to use the user's location to evaluate user bias.

FIG. 6A shows a pipeline in which a user may utilize voice commands,e.g., via a watch, to transmit information to the application to bedisplayed on multiple devices.

FIG. 6B shows a user interface for selecting a representation of acompetitor in an event uploaded to the system.

FIG. 7A shows a client interface for scoring the actions of a competitorin an event uploaded to the system, where the user interface isaccessible via the client application of the mobile device of the systemof the disclosure.

FIG. 7B shows another user interface of FIG. 7A for scoring the actionsof a competitor in an event uploaded to the system and accessible viathe client application.

FIG. 7C shows another user interface for scoring the actions of acompetitor in an event uploaded to the system and accessible via theclient application.

FIG. 7D shows a user interface for commenting on the actions of acompetitor in an event uploaded to the system and accessible via theclient application.

FIG. 7E shows a user interface illustrating the social media platformsof a competitor in an event uploaded to the system and accessible viathe client application.

FIG. 7F shows a user interface illustrating a selection of a potentialwinner of a competitor in an event uploaded to the system and accessiblevia the client application.

FIG. 7G shows a user interface in which a portion of the window isconfigured for video streaming and another portion contains informationabout the next event.

FIG. 7H shows a user interface that displays a competitor scoreboard.

FIG. 7I shows a user interface for selecting a representation of acompetitor in an event uploaded to the system.

FIG. 7J shows a user interface for scoring a competitor selected by theuser.

FIG. 7K shows a user interface in which the user may view thecompetitors in relation to each other by score.

FIG. 7L shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about a event and share the information on a socialplatform.

FIG. 7M shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about the event as well as a real-time countdown displayingthe remaining amount of time to score a competitor before the enteredscore is given a lower weight or eliminated.

FIG. 7N shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about the event as well as score the event using voicerecognition.

FIG. 7O shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about an event.

FIG. 7P a user interface allowing a user to record the actions of acompetitor in an event uploaded to the system and accessible via theclient application.

FIG. 8A shows a user interface in which the user may utilize screenswiping to view the score entered for a competitor in an event.

FIG. 8B shows a user interface in which the user may swipe a touchscreen device to view the results of an event.

FIG. 8C shows a user interface in which the user may swipe a touchscreen device to view the previous competitor to the current competitorin an event.

FIG. 8D shows a user interface in which the user may swipe a touchscreen device to view the next competitor in the event.

FIG. 8E shows a scoring table in accordance with the teachings of thedisclosure.

FIG. 8F shows another view of a scoring table of FIG. 8A in accordancewith the teachings of the disclosure.

FIG. 8G shows one version of a scoring matrix indicating one instance ofbias.

FIG. 8H shows another version of a scoring matrix indicating anotherinstance of bias.

FIG. 9A shows various system components in accordance with the teachingsof the disclosure.

FIG. 9B shows a user interface in which the user may view thecompetitors in relation to each other by score in a mobile web browser.

FIG. 9C shows a user interface to be used by official judges of acompetition to score competitors.

FIG. 10A shows a user interface in which the user can configureengagement with the application by setting up a user account and userprofile with the client application.

FIG. 10B shows a user interface in which the user can configureengagement with the client application by activating and deactivationvarious application settings.

FIG. 10C shows a user interface in which the user can configureengagement with the client application by activating and deactivationvarious settings.

FIG. 10D shows a user interface in which the user can view informationabout the events the user has signed up to score.

FIG. 10E shows a user interface in which the user may choose to engagewith international events.

FIG. 10F shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about an event.

FIG. 10G shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about the event as well as a real-time countdown displayingthe remaining amount of time to score a competitor before the enteredscore is given a lower weight or eliminated.

FIG. 10H shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about the current competitor as well as score the eventusing voice recognition.

FIG. 10I shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about an event including competitor scores and competitorinformation.

FIG. 10J shows a user interface in which the user has shared scores of aparticular competitor on INSTAGRAM®.

FIG. 11A displays a page navigation layout of the client application.

FIG. 11B shows a REST table in accordance with the teachings of thedisclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for allocatingand distributing inventory, such as perishable products.

As used herein, unless otherwise stated, the singular forms “a,” “an,”and “the” include plural reference.

Accordingly, presented herein is an interactive, crowd-sourcedevaluating, judging, scoring, and/or communicating platform that isconfigured for both enabling and encouraging audience engagement whenobserving and/or participating in an event. The participation may be inthe form as an observer, watching the event, as a judge, judging theevent, or as a participant of the event. In various instances, a sponsorand/or advertiser, a reporter, and/or journalist, or commentator, orother interested party may also be a participant.

Accordingly, an issue overcome by the devices, systems, and theirmethods of use herein disclosed may be used to enhance the engagement ofthose viewing the event, but not otherwise participating in it. Forinstance, certain athletic and/or entertainment events may notparticularly be engaging for the average viewer, e.g., when their childor team is not involved in the event or in a particular heat of theevent. Of course, in many instances, event announcers and/orcommentators are present to encourage and amplify fan engagement, buteven with the aid of a commentator, often times fans simply loseinterest when their favorite competitor or performer is not competing.Further, the secrecy and lack of real time transparency of the scoringinvolved during the event and/or throughout the day, additionally leadsto disenfranchised fans.

The event may be an athletic event, such as a sporting event, forinstance, a professional or collegiate or high school sporting event,e.g., a football, baseball, soccer, volleyball game, etc.; aprofessional or collegiate or high school competition, such as a boxing,martial arts, including jujitsu, Tae Kwon Do, judo, mixed martial arts(MMA), wrestling, tennis, surfing, track and field, dance competition,and the like; other competitive events, like Olympic, World Cup, PrimerLeague, NFL, MLB, NBA, MSL, swimming, gymnastic competitions and similartype of events. Further, the athletic event may be an event set up by alocal group of user's who wish to organize their own activity and openit up to evaluation, such as by use of the devices, systems, and methodsdisclosed herein. Further, the event may be any form of entertainmentevent that is amenable to evaluation, which event may be viewed andopened, e.g., via the APP, to have one or more of its elements and/orparticipants evaluated. Such entertainment events include theatricalperformances, movies and TV shows, including award shows, reportings,and competitions, as well as music, concerts, speeches, debates, and thelike. The athletic and entertainment events and performances may beglobal events, national events, statewide events, regional events, localevents, and the like. The performers may be professional,semi-professional, e.g., minor leagues, collegiate, high-school, or evenjunior league performers. In certain embodiments, the performers maysimple be any collection of users of the APP who desire to organize anevent that s open to viewing and/or evaluation through the APP.

For instance, in one use model, the devices, systems, and methods hereindisclosed may be used by those participating in, e.g., those competing,judging, observing, scoring, commenting and/or reporting on the event,and the event itself may be any suitable event amenable to evaluations,which for exemplary purposes herein may be a surfing, jujitsu, MMA,boxing competition, or the like, such as a professional or armature surfcontest for adults or kids. It is to be understood that although thefollowing is described with respect to a surf, jujitsu, or MMAcompetition, the devices, systems, and methods disclosed herein areuseful for enhancing fan engagement as well as for ensuring objectivityof judging, e.g. through identifying bias, in any athletic orentertainment event, competition, or performance, such as thoseinvolving the judging of one competitor or performer against another.Because of the informal nature of various surf competitions, as well asother amateur or local athletic events, such as Olympic events, bias injudging the performance of athletes or competitors competing in suchevents is difficult to objectively determine, and even more difficult tocounteract, and thus, the devices, methods, and systems of the presenttechnologies are particularly useful in such instances. Consequently, invarious instances, the event may also be any form of contest where oneteam, group, or person is competing against another team, group, orperson for votes, scores, accolades, and the like. Such events mayinclude performances, such as theatrical performances, elections,debates, and/or any other form of competitive interactions.

For example, in various embodiments, provided herein is a clientapplication that may be a downloadable software application “APP” thatis adapted for being downloaded onto and implemented by a client device.A client device may be any form of computing device, such as a desktopor laptop computer; or a mobile computing device, such as a tabletcomputer or mobile communication device, such as a cellular phone. Thedownloadable application may be configured for being downloaded onto theclient device and once there may be configured for directing theprocessor(s) of the host device to perform one or more predeterminedfunctions.

Particularly, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 1A, the clientapplication may be configured for generating a client interface forpresentation on a display of the device through which interface data maybe inputted, transmitted, and received. More particularly, as can beseen in FIG. 1A, the user interface may present a window whereby theuser may enter a pass code, such as a four-digit, e.g., alpha-numeric,pass code to log into the application. For instance, in one exemplaryembodiment, in order to access the system the user may enter a passcode.The passcode can be any form of security verification that the userenters so as to gain access to the system. In certain instances, thepasscode can be an alphanumeric number or word or mixture thereof, whichmay be entered via a prompt displayed on a user interface of the device,and/or may include the answering of one or more security questions. Ofcourse, access to the APP may be through a facial recognition or fingeridentification authentication device, or other password generatingapparatus. As illustrated, in this instance, the passcode interfacerequests the user to enter a four-digit code to activate the clientapplication log in screen. However, in various instances, the passcodemay be generated by a random number or word generator that may be sentto a key device (receiver), which may then be entered into the systemvia the user interface for access and authorization. In other instances,an access device, such as a dongle may be used to gain access to thesystem, such as by bringing the dongle into proximity and/or intocommunication or contact with the computing device. In certaininstances, the user may access the system by logging into the APP byusing their login information to another application, such as theirlogin information to a social media platform. Once the user is loggedinto the client application, they will then be enabled to engage thesystem and participate, e.g., as an evaluator or scorer, of a selectedevent.

In a first step in engaging with the system, FIG. 1B shows a userinterface in which the user of the client application creates a useraccount. Particularly, if the user is a new user and does not have apass code, the user is instead taken to a sign up screen, which is shownin FIG. 1B, where the user can create an account by entering their name,e-mail address, and desired password of the user. By creating an accountwith the application, the user also agrees to the application'sconditions of use and privacy notice. Once the account is created, aconfirmation e-mail containing a temporary, e.g., four-digit, pass codemay be sent to the user at the e-mail address the account was createdwith. Once the user re-opens the application and enters the temporarypass code, the user may request a new pass code that may be used to loginto the application on future occasions.

For example, in one embodiment, a new user who has not created a passcode with the client application uses the application interface to enterthe personal information required to create an account with the clientapplication including but not limited to: name, e-mail address, phonenumber, password, and the option to view the password decrypted.Following the transmission of personal information to the clientapplication in the new account creation interface, the user acknowledgesan agreement to abide by the privacy policy and conditions of use bypressing or otherwise selecting a check box or button, which indicatesacceptance of the terms of use of the system. At the completion ofentering user personal information and agreeing to the privacy policyand conditions of use, the user presses a submission button to initiatethe creation of a new account with the client application for which thesame user may repeatedly log in to the client application. Once the userhas created the account, a verification instruction may be sent, such asvia a text, SMS, phone call, email, or other means of communicationtransmission, the user then receives the communication via the mechanismof communication, e.g., e-mail account, associated with the clientapplication account, accesses the confirmation communication, verifyingthe user of the client application and assigning the user a temporarypass code to use for logging in. Once the user has obtained thetemporary pass code, the user may reopen the client application andenter the temporary pass code contained in the confirmation e-mailreceived to access the user's client application account. Likewise, oncethe user has entered the temporary pass code to log into the newlycreated account with the client application, the user will be promptedto create a permanent pass code, which may or may not be different fromthe temporary pass code, for which to log into the account forsubsequent times logging in.

As can be seen with respect to FIG. 1C, a participant of the system,e.g., an event organizer or user, may open and log on to the system viathe application. For instance, opening the application launches a userinterface, such as an interface that is configurable to the particularuser. Once logged on, the user screen of the user interface may allowthe user to enter and may subsequently display their identifyinginformation into the system, such as via the application. Suchidentifying information may include the name and residency of the useramong various other preferences, likes, and/or dislikes.

FIG. 1D shows a user interface in which the user of a client applicationis shown a welcome screen following the creation of an account with theapplication. Specifically, upon opening the application, the user may betaken to a welcome screen shown in FIG. 1D, in which the user of theapplication has the option to log in to an existing account or create anew account. When the user creates the account the user acknowledges andagrees to the application's privacy policy and conditions of use. Morespecifically, after the user has opened the application, a new user mayselect a button to create a new account, and an existing user may selecta button to log into an account that has been created. If a new userselects the option to create a new account, the user additionally andsimultaneously agrees to the terms of use, privacy policy, and EULA ofthe client application.

Additionally, the user interface may include toggles to allow the userto configure the functionality of the application. These functionalitiesallow the user to demarcate to what extent the particular user isamenable to engaging publically or privately with the system. Forexample, the user may allow the system to access and/or integrate theirvarious social media interfaces into a searchable database. Such socialmedia interfaces may include FACEBOOK®, INSTAGRAM®, TWITTER®, FLICKR®,PINTEREST®, FOURSQUARE®, and other online or public information storingresources. The access to such online content of, or related to. the useris useful for determining the user's identity, authenticity, patterns ofbehavior, truthfulness, especially with respect to their use of thesystem, such as for determining potential for bias. Alternatively, theuser may select an anonymous interaction, which will allow the user tointeract with the system and/or participate in the event in an anonymousmanner.

Further, the system may allow the user to participate as a competitorand/or performer, as a judge, as an evaluator and/or scorer, whichselection will determine at least in part, the permissions and/orweighting of the participant's interactions. Furthermore, at the userinterface, the user may enter, and/or the system may automaticallydetermine, who the user is following and/or tracking and/or otherwiseinterested in, such as with respect to that person's public, e.g.,social media presence. Likewise, the user and/or system may determinewho is friends with or is otherwise following the user. The selectableevents for participating in and/or viewing may also be presented at theuser interface for selection by the user.

Accordingly, as indicated, the present technology is directed to acommunication platform that is configured for allowing participation inan activity, such as an event. The participation may be as a judge, anobserver, evaluator, and/or scorer, as a performer, as an eventorganizer, even as a sponsor or advertiser, or the like. Specifically,as can be seen with respect to FIG. 2 , the client application of theplatform may be configured for generating a user interface so as toallow an event organizer, with the appropriate authorizations, to createan event. As indicated the organizer may be as large as a big corporatesponsor, or may be as small as a group of two local users wanting tojudge each other's performance. Accordingly, the event may be of severaldifferent types of events. For instance, the event may be a certifiedevent, a public event, a private event, a requested event, or the like.More specifically, as seen with respect to FIG. 2 , the application,e.g., the client application, may generate a user interface thatpresents an events window, by which an event organizer may organize anevent for participation by one or more system users.

In one instance, the event may be a certified event. A certified eventmay be one of a series of events in a competition that spans a number ofdays, weeks, or months, and/or may be global, regional, or local inscope. As such an event may be certified when it is part of a regularlyscheduled series of professional, amateur, or school based competitions,and the like that have sought and received certification for the eventvia the governing and/or regulating body of the event, e.g., sport, inquestion. For instance, a weekly sporting event, such as a football,Australian rules football, Rugby, soccer, basketball, or baseball game,or the like, where several teams in one or more conferences play eachother for an annual title, may be certified as an event. Such events maybe a national, state, regional, or citywide event, and in someinstances, the event may be televised, and as such, the pool ofpotential participants, e.g., evaluators and/or scorers, may be quitelarge. In various instances, such events may not be nationallytelevised, but may be more than a local event, in terms of popularity.Although in some instances, they may be big nationally televised orlocal events. Accordingly, in such an instance, the system may beadapted to flexibly adjust to local, regional, national, or globalviewing parameters.

A public event may typically be an event that is made available to avery large audience, but may not be regularly occurring and/or aseasonal event. Such an event may be a boxing match, an Olympic event, aWord Cup event, Grand Tour, or the like that may be nationally and/orinternationally televised. In such instances, the system may be adaptedto receive input from a very large number of participants. A privateevent, however, is an event that is neither nationwide, like a publicevent, nor is it typically of regional or even citywide interest.Rather, a private event is typically one that is of interest to a localneighborhood or community interest. For example, a private event maysimply be a local event, like a little league baseball or pop-warnerfootball game. In such an instance, the system may be adapted to adjustto local viewing parameters, such as for receiving inputs from a smallernumber of users.

Additionally, where an event is of such a nature as to not be of wideinternational, national, state, regional, and/or of citywide and/or ofcommunity interest, a user may still request that the event be openedfor participation by users by simply activating the request eventfunctionality. In such an instance, the event organizer simply needinput the event specifications into the application interface, definethe region of participation, and once authorized by the system the eventwill be made available to other users of the system, in the localenvironment, such as by entering a search query into a search window.Alternatively, once an event has been set up, either automatically bythe system itself, such as for certified and public events, or throughcreation by an event organizer, other potential users may be invited toparticipate in the event, such as by engaging the invite functionalityto send an invite to selected users. Further still, where a user desiresto view a certain event that a desired participant, such as a particularteam or professional athlete, is participating in, the user may selectto follow the participant via the application, and may then receivenotifications via the system as to what events the selected team orathlete participates in, so as to be able to observe the event and/orparticipate in as an observer and/or scorer.

Particularly, as can be seen with respect to FIGS. 3A-3F, the clientapplication can generate a series of screens via the user interface soas to prompt a user for entering the information that is fundamental tosetting up and/or organizing an event. For instance, in setting up anevent a number of parameters may be selected so as to determine theparticulars of the event. Some particulars may be optional, while otherswill likely be mandatory. For example, as seen in FIG. 3A, the user mayselect among a variety of optional particulars, such as whether or notpublic or private evaluation and/or scoring is allowed, or whetheranonymous evaluating or scoring is allowed, whether the event is to becertified, and/or whether the event is open to be broadcast, such as viasocial media. However, in some instances, it may be useful to limitthose who may participate in an event, such as a judge or scorer, suchas by geographical region, time zone, and the like.

More particularly, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 3A, a userinterface configured for being presented on a user's, e.g., a scorer'smobile device, may be presented, wherein the interface may include anumber of options for setting up and organizing an event. For instance,when an administrator or event organizer interacts with the system toset up a specific event, the user interface may present a proximitysetting for allowing the organizer to determine a perimeter within whichthe event interface may be accessed by other users of the system. Insuch an instance, the system may be configured to allow certain users,e.g., within the perimeter settings, to score or otherwise evaluate acompetitor and/or event, while excluding other users, e.g., thoseoutside of the perimeter setting from entering an evaluation or score.Hence, given the geographical tagging and location services that arecollected with respect to the devices of the various users of thesystem, scores entered into devices identified as being within theperimeter may be entered, accepted, and/or used in the evaluationprocess, but scores attempted to be entered into devices outside of theperimeter, cannot be entered and/or accepted. For instance, the userinterface may present a toggle for turning a proximity locator on, alocation setting, demarcating where the event is to take place, and/or adistance input for entering a distance parameter within which scoresand/or evaluations will be allowed to be entered, outside of whichscores may not be entered. However, in various instances, the commentingfunction may or may not be functional for all users regardless ofgeographical location.

Further, the presented screen may include one or more toggles orswitches that allow the event organizer to structure the parameters ofthe event, such as whether the event is open to scoring by the public,may only be scored by registered vent participants, may be anonymouslyscored, or the like. As indicated, the location settings may be engagedto identify where the event is to take place and the proximity limitermay be configured so as to limit those potentially able to score theevent, such as based on a selected or entered distance factor. Thepresented screen may also present whether the event is to be certifiedor not, and/or what the social media factors to be employed are. In thisinstance, the scoring proximity is delimited by both a location, such asHuntington Beach, and further by a radius of 1 mile, such that thosewithin the 1 mile radius may participate in the event. Limitingparticipation to a specific region, while excluding those not withinthat region, may be useful in that it limits participation to thosepresumed to have a more vested interest in the outcome in the results,than those located further and further from the event. This helps tomaintain the relevancy and authenticity of the event and its variousparticipants.

Accordingly, at any particular event, the system may be configured forincluding and excluding certain regions, either by geographical locationor by a certain predefined distance from the event. So, if a given eventor performance, such as a surfing or jujitsu or MMA event, is occurringin a given location, such as Huntington Beach, Culver City, SanClemente, or the like, those allowed to participate in the scoring maybe limited to those at the actual event, e.g., on the beach at thattime, those within the city, if regionally broadcast, or those within abroader range, if broadcast, e.g., televised, nationally, such asdepending on whether the event is a public or private event. Forinstance, for local, e.g., a requested or private event, it may beuseful to limit those who can score the participants in the event towithin a given distance from where the action is taking place, such aswithin 100-500 yards of the event, or within the event arena or stadium,or within 1 mile or 5 or 10, or 25, or 50 or 100 miles or more from theevent, because by limiting opinions to those actually at the event, orclose by, such as to those actually watching the event, means that thescores entered will be more contemporaneous, more honest, and presumablybe less prone to bias and more valid.

However, if the event is televised to a wider audience, such as a publicevent, it may then be useful to increase the proximity area for thoseallowed to score the event. In such an instance, as described in detailherein, the further the distance from the event, or the maximallyapproved region, the weighting and/or ranking of the scores may bedifferent, taking into account how far away from the event's locationthe scoring is taking place. Hence, if an event is taking place on theEast coast, but is being televised to the West Coast, e.g., on a 3 hourtime delay, the application can be configured to account for where inthe nation the scoring device is, and where and when the scoring isbeing entered, and this data may then be used to weight the receivedscores. For instance, for the referenced East Coast event, those on theWest Coast may be prevented from scoring the event until it is broadcastin the region where the mobile device is located. Alternatively, invarious instances, devices located out of the identified time and/orregion, in this instance, those on the West Coast, may be blocked fromparticipating. However, in other instances, scores may be accepted fromany device regardless of region so long as the evaluation and scoresbeing entered are contemporaneous with the action of the event orparticipant being evaluated. Such contemporaneous scoring, such as forusers outside of where the event is taking place, may in some instances,show that the scorer is highly invested in the outcome of the event,since they are viewing and engaging in the event despite being outsideof its typical presentation.

Specifically, the user interface may be configured for manually enteringlocation data into the system, such as through entry into a userinterface of the scoring device. In various instances, the system may beconfigured for automatically determining the location of the eventand/or the location of each of the scoring apparatuses being employed bythe various users of the system. Such automatic identification can bedetermined by the system in a variety of manners, such as viatriangulation, GPS tracking, cellular signal, and the like. Forinstance, a suitably configured geolocation system may be provided. Forexample, the geolocation system may include one or more technologiessuch as a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Exemplary GNSSsystems that enable accurate geolocation can include GPS in the UnitedStates, Globalnaya navigatsionnaya sputnikovaya sistema (GLONASS) inRussia, Galileo in the European Union, and/or BeiDou System (BDS) inChina. Hence, when a system administrator or event organizer sets up theevent, and enters the event parameters into the system, e.g., forparticipation, evaluation, and/or scoring, the geographical regionwithin which the users of the system may participate in the event, e.g.,as scorers, may also be determined and/or otherwise defined.

Consequently, once the geographical boundaries have been defined andset, the system may then regulate who is authorized, e.g., whichdevices, to score the event. This may be done through an interactiveuser interface that translates the selection of a given region intogeographical coordinates, e.g., GPS coordinates, setting forth the area,e.g., mapped to a very precise or even a broad location, in which scoreswill be considered, and the area in which scores will not be considered.Particularly, in various embodiments, scoring may be limited to a givenlocation, such as an arena, or stadium, or the like, or may be opened toa larger area such as an entire city, region, or state. In otherembodiments, scoring may be limited so as to only allow scores fromthose deemed to have a vested interest in the outcome, as determined atleast in part by geographical location. As is explained in greaterdetail below, the geographical parameters of the system may be employedin determining a weighting regime by which evaluations being enteredinto the system may be appropriately ranked so as to ensure theauthenticity of the evaluations entered into the system.

Further, as can be seen with respect to FIGS. 3B and 3C, a number ofevent parameters may be entered into the system to define the eventparticulars, such as the event name or title and/or the date of theevent. An image may also be selected so as to represent and distinguishthe various participants in the event, as seen with respect to FIG. 6 .Additionally, a time window representing a duration during which scoresmay be entered into the system may also be set, and timeout judges maybe demarcated.

Also, if an event is one where there are many divisions, rounds, bouts,and/or heats these particulars may also be entered into the system. Theevent start time and duration may also be entered into the system, andwhere there are various rounds or heats, the start time and/or durationof the rounds or heats may also be entered. Likewise, the list ofcompetitors in the event and/or rounds may also be entered into thesystem and/or the maximum number of entries per round may be set. Incertain instances, as explained below, the system may be configured fordetermining and/or setting any of these parameters automatically.Particularly, the system may include an artificial intelligence modulethat is configured for determining when an event or an action within anevent is starting, the duration thereof, and when the same is ending.More particularly, the system may be configured for autonomouslydetermining when a round is to begin, when a participant within a roundis to begin an activity, and/or who is next to perform in the round orevent. Furthermore, in various instances, the system is furtherconfigured for transmitting round order and other event particularsdirectly to the event participants or performers, such as over acommunications network to a mobile computing device carried by theparticipant, such as to a mobile phone, smart watch, and the like.

Likewise, with respect to FIG. 3C, once an event has been set up, a usercan access their account where they may be presented with a graphicaluser interface that will allow them to select that newly created eventfrom a list of events in which to participate. At this point the userinterface may provide a selection of data pertinent to the selectedevent. Such data may include an indication of the selected event as wellas one or more of a designation of the division, the round or heatnumber, the date of the event, start time, e.g., for the event or heat,the duration, which competitors are performing in the heat, the numberof participants in the event or heat, a time period within which fanengagement may be accepted, and the like. The user may also engage thesettings menu so as to determine the various settings the event has beenconfigured under.

Further, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 3D, a search window may beopened. For instance, one or more dropdown menus may be used to allow auser to perform a search wherefrom they can select an event from a listof events, and/or select from a list of other users to invite to viewand/or participate in the event. These parameters may further be limitedby filtering by gender and/or type of event, as well as eventclassification. In various embodiments, the event classification mayallow one or more users to invite one or more other users or performersto participate in the event, e.g., either as an observer or as aparticipant. For instance, a number of invitees may be selected forbeing invited to participate in an event, and further, those who seek toparticipate in the event may also send a request to the organizer forauthorization to participate, e.g., as a scorer, of the event throughthe application. In such an instance, those to be invited and/orrequesting invitation to participate in the event will show up on theuser interface as a list of potential invitees for approval ordisapproval, such as by the event organizer.

Further, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 3E, the user interface maydisplay a list of events available for participation in, which eventsmay be demarcated by type and by the gender of the various competitorevents. As illustrated, the listed events are certified, public,private, invited, and may also include a list of broadcasts, e.g.,televised, and completed events. And as indicated in FIG. 3F the eventsmay be listed in any order, such as alphabetically or by time of eventor the like, may be categorized, such as by event type and the like.

As indicated above, another important aspect of the technology is ageographical limiter, by which the system may limit those who mayparticipate in the event in various manners, such as by organizerchoice, geographical region, time period, and the like, as depicted inFIGS. 4 and 5 . For instance, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 4A, alist of participants may be presented at the user interface. In thisinstance, the participants in consideration are those selectable asjudges, such judges may be official judges or unofficial judges, such asevaluators and/or scorers of the event. Particularly, a list ofpotential judges may be presented, where the identity of the judge andtheir history of participation in the event may be listed. In such aninstance, the event organizer, or other authorized party, may be enabledto select those who may participate, e.g., as a judge or scorer, of theevent.

As can be seen with respect to FIG. 4B, the user interface may present amap of available events that are possible to attend and/or participatein, such as by geographical area, by date, by time, etc. And once theevent is set up and entered into the system, the present event screenmay be presented, which screen may demarcate the region of the event aswell as the event identification, the event/present date and time, andthe selected judges for the event, as well as the scoreboard detailingthe scores of the judges/evaluators. Also, where the user is an eventorganizer, e.g., an administrator, the user interface may includevarious control screen functionalities that allow the user to controlthe event particularities, such as when the event will begin, end,and/or may include a delete of event or event particularity function.

Furthermore, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 4C, in variousinstances, the system may be configured for allowing the real or pasttime viewing of the event, in its entirety or by competitor, with pause,fast forward, and/or reverse functionalities, as appropriate. Forinstance, the system may be configured for streaming the event, or aportion thereof, live. Particularly, streaming multimedia, such as via acellular or Internet network, is multimedia that may be broadcast by astreaming provider to an end-user client device, such as a mobiletelephone or tablet computer. In various instances, dependent on theconfiguration of the system, the streaming may require more or lessbandwidth and/or latency whereby the data may be cached locally. Astream of media can be provided on-demand or live. On demand streams maybe stored on a server for a long period of time, and are available to betransmitted upon receiving a user's request. Live streams may still usea server to broadcast the event, but are typically only available at oneparticular time, such as a live sporting event, a theatricalperformance, a political debate, an educational lecture, or a concert,and the like. In various instances, live streams may be edited,compiled, and/or formatted real-time for distribution in a plurality offormats so as to be appropriately sized to be viewed on the screen ofthe mobile device to which it is being broadcast. In certain instances,the live stream may be converted into on demand stream for later contentconsumption, such as via a time-delay. The live online presentation ofcontent to large streaming audiences may be unidirectional orbi-directional so as to facilitate observer participation. The system,therefore, may be configured for allowing one or more users to recordthe event, and play it back via the application. Consequently, thereal-time date of the event may be displayed along with the duration ofthe current heat and/or the event itself. Additionally, the acceptedjudges and/or scorers may be selectable so as to see their scores, rawor corrected, per competitor per heat. Likewise, the current leaderboardwith current and past scores may also be presented for viewing.

As indicated, a unique feature of the system is a geographic locator. Inone use model, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 5A, the geographiclocator may be employed so as to search and locate events for viewingand/or participation, such as through a search functionality, wherebyvarious events within the system may be searched by geographical region.Specifically, the events may be searched by a drop down menu of regionshosting events, such as by continent, by country, by region, by state,by county, by city, by town or municipality, and the like.Alternatively, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 5B, at any point, aninteractive geographical map may be presented for searching a specificregion, which map may not only locate events within the region, but mayalso locate one or more of the users and/or other participants. The mapmay be navigated via a capacitive sensing, touch screen interfaceallowing the user to touch and swipe their fingers across the screen asa means of navigating the map. Performing a pinching motion wellcompress the screen, while performing the opposite of a pinchingmovement, e.g., performing an opening movement, enlarges the screen.

Additionally, the geographical indicator may be used to limit who canparticipant, such as an evaluator or scorer, in the event. Specifically,the system may be configured to limit use by one or more of location anddistance. For instance, in various instances, it may be desirable tolimit those who can access the system, e.g., the online system, such asvia the application, to participate, e.g., as an evaluator, in anathletic event, such as an athletic event, competition, or performanceof the system. Particularly, if an athletic event is being performedwithin a given location, such as within a given municipality, within agiven city, within a given county, within a given state, within a givencountry, within a given nation, and such, the system may be configuredto limit those who can participate within the event, as an evaluator, tothose within a certain region, such as within a given distance from theevent, such as by one or more of the event location, municipality, city,county, state, or country, or nation, and the like.

For instance, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 5C, a regionallybroadcast event may take place, where the system has set forth one ormore perimeters within which one or more event participants may watch,evaluate, and score an event. In this instance, unlimited participationas an evaluator of the event may be limited to a region of the country,such as within a first perimeter, such as a county of California, likeSan Francisco. A second perimeter may include the states of California,Oregon, and Arizona. Evaluators within this perimeter may be allowed toparticipate, but the evaluations they enter may be discounted based upona determined negative geographical factor because they are deemed to notbe located particularly close to the event. Other parameters may also bedemarcated and further restricted, e.g., based on negative geographicaland/or time factors and the like, or excluded from evaluating the eventaltogether. These parameters are demarcated by the hashed lines. Hence,observers of the event in regions outside of perimeters one and two, asindicated by the dashed line perimeters, would be more limited in theirparticipation and scoring, e.g., at least their scoring would not begiven as much weight, and those outside of a demarcated perimeters,would be excluded from scoring the event altogether, depending on howthe parameters were set up by the event organizer.

FIG. 5D shows a user interface in which the user may enable the clientapplication to identify the user's location, e.g., so as to employ thatlocation to evaluate for potential user bias. As shown in FIG. 5D, theuser may enter their location or the system may identify and/ordetermine the user's location automatically. This may be done in anumber of different manners, such as using cellular tower triangulation,GPS location, and/or through RFID determination. For instance, in oneembodiment, the user may enable the system to detect the user's locationvia the phone's Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, whichutilizes electromagnetic fields to detect and track tags attached toobjects. Location identification can also be determined using imagerecognition. Particularly, in various instances, the application canthen employ the user's location to evaluate bias, such as based on theuser's proximity to the event. As the proximity of the user to the eventincreases, the higher the entered scores may be weighted with thesystem's A/I “weighting” module, as explained in greater detail below.

As can be seen with respect to FIGS. 4C and 6A the system may beconfigured for broadcasting or otherwise displaying the audio and/orvideo of the event and/or the performances therein so that remote usersmay listen and/or view the event. For instance, the system may include,or may otherwise be configured for, receiving audio/video of the event,and for broadcasting that event for listening and display at remoteclient and/or recipient devices. Specifically, the implementation of thesystem may include capturing audio files and/or video images ofperformers in the competition or performance, transmitting such audioand/or video, e.g., in live-streaming fashion or as an audio/video file,to one or more of the associated client devices, and allowing the userto listen and/or view and score the performance remotely.

More specifically, a user of the system may stream an event broadcastlive, or may receive and watch a recording thereof, and may further bepresented with an interface presented at the display of the device thatnot only shows the event but also allows the user to engage in theevent, such as by evaluating and/or scoring the performance, asdescribed herein, or by messaging one or more of the other participants,or one or more of their friends with whom they are associated, such asby a social media platform. In a manner such as this, the system isconfigured for allowing those outside of the local area where the eventis being held to participate in the event. However, as indicated, thesystem may take into account the user's distance from the event, and/orthe time lag between their observing the event and entering scores, whendetermining the appropriate weight to be given to the scores entered byremote observers. In certain instances, the system may be configuredsuch that scores are to be entered and transmitted to the central serversuch as by engaging with a displayed key or number pad. For instance,the system may include a communications module, which communicationsmodule may include a suitably configured transmitter and/or receiver.For example, a typical transmitter may be a radio frequency (RF)transmitter, a cellular transmitter, WIFI, and/or a Bluetooth®, such asa low energy Bluetooth® transmitter unit. In some instances, a typicalreceiver may include a satellite based geolocation system, e.g., a GPS,or other mechanism for determining the position of an object inthree-dimensional space.

In various instances, the system may be configured such that the scoresmay be entered and/or transmitted such as through initiation via a voicecommand. In such an instance, as discussed in greater detail hereinbelow, the system may be configured such that a user may engage anactivation switch or button, either physically or via voice command, andonce activated may speak into a microphone of the device, so as toverbally enter an evaluation or score for the performer and/or for theperformance. Specifically, as explained below, in various instances, thesystem may include an artificial intelligence (A/I) module that mayinclude a learning or training platform that is configured for learningthe voice and words or phrases of a user, and may further include aninference engine that is configured for predicting the meaning behindthe words and/or phrases employed by users, especially with respect totheir use of the system to engage in, e.g., evaluate and/or score, anevent. As such, the system is capable of receiving voice commands from auser in their scoring of the events of a competition or performance, andtransmitting the same to a remote, e.g., central server, of the system.

Particularly, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 6A, as indicatedabove, the system may include a downloadable “APP” that is capable ofbeing downloaded and/or otherwise installed on a user device, e.g., amobile computing device that may be a mobile phone or computing watch.More particularly, FIG. 6A shows a pipeline in which a user may utilizevoice commands to transmit information to the application to be enteredinto the system and considered thereby, and which, in certainembodiments, may be re-sent for display by one or more other devices,such as a second device, e.g., mobile computing device, of the user.

For example, a computing device configured as a mobile phone, or in thisinstance, a wrist-worn watch or bracelet may be provided, where thewatch or bracelet includes a display screen upon which a user interfaceof the system may be presented. The interface may include a screen orviewer upon which a performance in an event may be listened to orviewed, and/or a user dashboard may be presented, which dashboard, asdisclosed herein, may display information about the event and itscompetitors or performers, and may include a mechanism by which the usermay engage in the event, such as an evaluator, scorer or commentator,either officially or unofficially.

More particularly, in various embodiments, the dashboard, displayable ona display screen of the phone or watch, may include a user engagementinterface that allows the user to activate the microphone of the device,such as through tapping or otherwise activating the system, so as toreceive a voice command from the user. The voice command may be innatural language, and may be with reference to describing a competitor'sperformance in the event, such as by scoring the performance. Uponreceiving a voice command, such as a score, the system, via the mobilecomputing device, may then transmit the voice command to a centralserver, such as to the A/I module of the system. The A/I module may beconfigured to include a voice recognition and/or modulation module thatis capable of receiving and determining the meaning behind a user'svoice commands. It is to be understood that although the immediatedescription is with respect to a voice command given to a smart watch orbracelet, any suitably configured smart, computing device may beemployed for these purposes.

Accordingly, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 6A, the application iscapable of running on multiple devices including smart phones and smartwatches. For instance, utilizing the core foundation technology, thepresent system has developed devices, systems, and their methods of useso as to provide competitors and or fans real-time information to awearable technology like smart phone, watch, athletic bracelet, and thelike. In such an instance, a competitor can have a wearable on theirperson and be alerted to where he\she or the device should physically belocated, e.g., in order to begin their performance. One such examplewould be using a wearable having an interface, e.g., display, that ischangeable in color or presentation of a graphic, such as a number, thatmay flag or indicate the position to be in, the routine to be followed,the action(s) to be taken, and/or the order or sequence of events totake place, as well as the order and sequence of performers.

The device can also display which performer is performing, who justperformed, who is on-deck, and may further display the characteristicsand/or results of the performers previous performance, and mayadditionally display what scores need to be achieved in order to beatthe previous performance and/or advance to the next round. Additionalinformation can also be sent from the server to the performer via thewearable device, which information may include real time messaging,information flags or placards setting forth useful information, alerts,calculations, statistics, etc. including time until up, place, distancetraveled, schedule notifications, safety concerns, etc. For example, inthe context of surfing, a competitor may be sitting in the water andthere are colored buoys or notification devices present (buoy, numbersigns, colors flags, etc.). Using the present technology, theapplication could change the color of the watch face to indicate thecolor of flag they should be physically next to and/or the order ofperformance, and when.

As shown in FIG. 6A, the user may utilize voice commands to enter scoresby tapping on the watch or speaking a key initiation phrase while theclient application is running. The voice commands of the user mayidentify the name of the event, the round or heat, the competitor orperformer of choice, and the desired evaluation and/or score. Each voicecommand may be interpreted by the system's artificial intelligence (A/I)modules, and the user's given evaluation or score is returned via theapplication protocol interface (API). Once the evaluation and/or scoreis received by the system's A/I “weighing” module, the evaluation may beparsed for meaning and/or scores may be weighted. For instance, theevaluations and/or scores may be weighted and/or ranked according toseveral factors that may reveal the meaning and/or reasoning behind theevaluations and scores, which may include an analysis as to the presenceof bias in the evaluations and/or scoring, such as where a higher levelof bias will introduce a lower weight and/or rank to the enteredevaluation or score, and a lower level of bias will introduce a higherweight to the evaluation or score. As described herein, the system's A/I“social” module may be configured to determine a plurality of sources ofbias, such as via one or more, e.g., all, social media platforms.

In order to store information, in this instance, from the smart watchonto the smart phone, the watch and/or phone may include a storageresource, such as a memory, and/or may regularly communicate with thesystem server and database to sync the devices. The memory may be anysuitable memory such as NAND, flash, DRAM, or FRAM, or the like.

In various instances, the voice data may be received and/or entered intothe system via a suitably configured application programming interface,API. Once received by the system, the command may be interpreted by thesystem, e.g., a speech recognition application, whereby the languagewill be parsed, and relevant data, e.g., evaluation and/or score data,may be entered into the system. The system may then forward aconfirmatory message back to the entry device, or secondary device, ofthe user so as to allow the user to confirm that the system hascorrectly interpreted the voice command. Where the user device is awatch, bracelet, or the like, e.g., smart glasses, the device may beconfigured for communicating directly with the system, or may beconfigured for communicating with the system through an intermediarydevice, such as a mobile phone.

For example, the device may be “online” or “offline,” and when thedevice is offline, a user may record and/or otherwise store data entriesthat may be transmitted or entered into the system when the device isonline, such as when the device, e.g., watch, is paired or synced withanother device of the system, such as a mobile telephone, whereby thedata, such as a verbal message, may then be transmitted to a server ofthe system. Once received by the system, the system, e.g., an A/I modulethereof, may then analyze and evaluate the data and/or weight and/orhandicap the data, as disclosed herein, and/or may transmit the data toone or more social media platforms. The results of the analysis may thenbe transmitted back to the recording device, which may be accompaniedwith one or more other system generated messages, which message may bean evaluation of the users evaluation.

More specifically, with respect to FIG. 6A, once the user has decided toengage with a spectator event via a smart watch, or other voiceactivated computing device, the user may configure the application tobegin processing a voice recording in order to engage with the event.The user may be signaled by the application to initiate the recording.The user may utilize recorded voice commands to interact with the clientapplication. Once the associated devices and client application processthe voice recognition interaction from the user, the user may view avisual representation of the recorded and processed voice command on asmart phone. In a manner such as this, the user may engage with thesystem and participate in the event simply by employing the audio(and/or video) mechanisms of the system, so as to participate moreclosely in the event.

Accordingly, in various instances, the system may include one or morefilm or video cameras, which cameras may be configured for not onlycapturing images of the performer or competitor participating in theevent, but may also capture images of the crowd, judges, evaluators,scorers, and/or other spectators within view of a camera of the system.In such an instance, one or more of the captured images may betransmitted to the server, such as to the A/I module, specifically, toan image recognition module of the system. Hence, in variousembodiments, the system may include an suitably configured imagerecognition module. The image recognition module may be configured forperforming a plurality of tasks. For instance, the collected images maybe examined so as to be employed in a process for determining bias.Particularly, images may be analyzed by the system so as to identifypeople who may be associated with one another, such as by having beenphotographed together, e.g., such as attending an event together, beingtagged together, commenting on one another's photos, having friends incommon, and the like. For example, images captured at an event can berun against a database, such as a publicly accessible image database,e.g., a database of FACEBOOK®, INSTAGRAM®, TWITTER®, FLICKR®,PINTEREST®, or the like. In various embodiments, the system itself mayinclude a database of stored images, which may be used for determiningvarious associations between participants. More particularly, asexplained in greater detail below, a knowledge graph of identifiedimages and associated relationships between them may be generated andused by the system in one or more of its analyses steps.

In other instances, the system may configure one or more image capturingdevices, e.g., cameras, to collect images of various different articlesof manufacture, such as articles that may include a logo, such as a logoor other identifying marks, such as a trademark, of one of the eventand/or participant sponsors. The logo may be on a sign, banner, articleof clothing, including hats, shoes, shirts, etc., equipment, a tool, andthe like. The collection of logo images may be used and/or analyzed fora variety of different purposes, such as for identifying how many timesa given logo or other identifying mark appears in the images.Particularly, in various embodiments, the cameras may be video cameras,the images captured may be from a streaming video, such as a live feedof the event, and an analysis of the images to be performed may be forthe purpose of identifying, qualifying, and/or quantifying therepresentation of a sponsor or advertiser of the event. For instance, invarious instances, sponsors and/or advertisers may pay to haveparticipants and/or other market influencers wear or use articles withtheir logo. However, determining the return of such an investment isoften hard to quantify. Nevertheless, the system may be configured fordetermining the value of the sponsorship and/or advertising, such asbased on the extent of the coverage, e.g., media coverage and/orairtime. In such an instance, the number, time, location, prominence,etc. of the image may be used in determining a value.

In a further embodiment, the system may be configured for communicatingwith the performers in the event. For instance, images captured by oneor more of the cameras may be analyzed, and one or more elements thereinmay be communicated to the performers, such as to affect theirperformances, such as in the event. Specifically, an analysis of theimages obtained in a competition can be made and feedback as to how toincrease the competitiveness of the competitors, or to indicate theoccurrence, or predicted occurrence, of an event relevant to thecompetition or its competitors may be made and communicated to thecompetitors or performers.

More specifically, in the context of a surfing competition, the systemcan analyze news feeds, weather feeds, as well as images displayingcurrent conditions that are captured by its cameras, so as to predict afuture event, such as the occurrence of an upcoming wave, andcommunicate that information to one or more of the surfers in the water,such as to allow them to adequately prepare for a performance.Particularly, the system can determine when a wave is coming up, andsend that information to a surfer in the line-up in the water, such asto a waterproof smart watch or phone of the surfer. In a manner such asthis, all the surfers in the competition can be given a smart watch forcommunicating with the system server, and can thereby be given commandsor suggestions, or be informed as to upcoming events, such as currentstandings, wave order, and/or upcoming waves, so as to better informthem of the competition process. More particularly, the next surfer inthe wave order in the lineup may be given an indication that a new waveis coming, from what direction, and/or be notified as to othercharacteristics of the upcoming event, e.g., wave. It is to beunderstood that even though the preceding has been described withrespect to the event of a surfing competition, the same processes may beapplied to any of a number of competitions and/or performances,including but not limited to: combat arts competitions, such as Boxing,Jujitsu, Martial Arts (including MMA), as well as other such actionsports.

Additionally, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 6B, the user interfacemay allow a user to demarcate and/or distinguish between variouscompetitors in an event in a variety of different manners. For instance,as can be seen with respect to FIG. 6B, competitors and/or otherparticipants may be distinguished from one another by differentuniforms, such as jerseys, or different icons or avatars, and/or may beselected from one or more images, e.g., a digital photograph, of theparticipant. Other such designators may also be used, such as in a GIFor JPEG image, animation, and the like. Further, when using a voiceinitiated engagement the user may designate a performer and/orcompetitor by name, jersey, avatar, or other such designator by voice.

Likewise, as indicated, a unique feature of the system is theenhancement of engagement of the audience of an event, such as byallowing individual members of the observing crowd to participate in theevent, such as by allowing a user to score the event and/or the event'scompetitors or performers. Particularly, event organizers often seek outsponsorships when putting on an event. Such sponsorship is important forattracting the best competitors and/or performers for participation inthe event, because the more money and/or goods that can be provided tothe competitors/performers, e.g., the bigger the purse, the more highprofile competitors will want to compete in the event. Likewise, thebigger the purse, the more the event sponsors can pay out, and the morecompetitive the actors will be, and of course, the more engaging theaudience will find the event. Consequently, as discussed in greaterdetail herein, audience engagement in the competitions and performancesthe event sponsors organize is an important metric for how effective theevent will be for the sponsors present and future collaborations withthe event organizers, promoters, competitors, performers, and the like.

More particularly, watching sports is a favorite past time for manypeople. However, participating in athletic events is even more engaging,and yet not everyone can compete on a level to be showcased. Therefore,the present devices, systems, and their methods of use disclosed hereinare configured for building audience engagement in the event in a moreintimate manner, over just passively watching the event. Specifically,where watching a performance, e.g., by competitors, may at first beinteresting and enthralling, over time those watching may lose interestor grow bored doing so throughout the course of the event. This isconcerning to sponsors because they depend on audience engagement tosell their brands, which sales provide the impetus to sponsor the eventand/or competitors and/or performers therein. As such, audienceengagement is of primary interest to event organizers and competitorsand performers. Accordingly, the devices and methods disclosed herein,which are configured to increase and maintain a high level of crowdengagement throughout the course of the event, are very useful tools ofevent organizers, participants, and others such as sponsors. Likewise,as described above, to further assist in determining the effectivenessof the referenced sponsorships and/or advertising, the system can beconfigured to identify, recognize, collect, analyze, qualify, and/orotherwise quantify the instances wherein the sponsors or advertisersimages, logos, and/or representatives thereof are captured by thesystem. This information can then be transmitted or otherwisecommunicated to the sponsor or advertiser so as to facilitate and/orcalculate their return on their investment in the event.

Client interactions with the systems herein described are an importantfeature of the technology. Consequently, the devices, systems, and theirmethods of use, as provided herein, are adapted for enhancing andimproving crowd engagement through providing apparatuses, means, andmethods that are adapted for more immediate and collective fanparticipation in an event, such as by allowing observers of the event toactually participate in how the event progresses. Specifically, thedevices and methods of the system may be employed for judging and/orscoring of competitive events, be they sporting events, theatricalperformances, or even election results (e.g., official and/orunofficial), in a real-time and in an ongoing manner, but also in amanner to make the judging and/or scoring process more transparent,accurate, and honest.

In certain instances, the participation and/or voting may be directedtowards selecting an action of a list of actions that may be performedby the participants. Particularly, an action menu may be provided to theuser interface of a user device, where the menu includes a list of avariety of different actions from which a user can select an action tobe performed. Once selected, the action may be sent to the centralserver, whereby the server will collect all entries, aggregate theselections, and based on the results will determine which action theperformer should take. These actions may include plays that may be runin a game, moves to be taken by a player, statements made by an orator,songs or lines to be performed by a performer, such as a musicalperformer. For instance, in this instance, the actions can be a list ofsurfing maneuvers, such as a cut-back, a lip-smack, a floater, and thelike. In the instance of mixed martial arts, the list of actions may befighting maneuvers, such as a roundhouse, take down, rear-naked-choke.Specifically, the system can present the various suggested actions tothe crowd for selection, the crowd can then make its selection, theresults can be tabulated by the system, the highest scoring action canthen be transmitted to the performer, such as for presentation to anelectronic device thereof, e.g., a smart watch or phone, and theperformer can then implement the winning action. In various instances,the event may be a speech, and the list of actions may be arguments,comments, and/or other dictum to be made during the speech.

For instance, in various embodiments, a system for aggregating and/orelectronically displaying a judging, e.g., crowdsourced judging, of anactivity is provided. In various embodiments, the system includes aclient computing device for implementing a client application, such asfor execution on one or more, e.g., a plurality, of client computingdevices. In such instances, each of the client computing device may havean interactive display, where the client application generates aninteractive user interface on the display. Particularly, the interactiveuser interface provides a plurality of input prompts, for instance,where each of the plurality of input prompts represents a qualitativeand/or quantitative judgment of the activity, and in some instances, theinput prompts may be individually selectable by a user of each of theplurality of client computing devices to input a user judgment of theactivity.

The system may also include an aggregator server or computer that may beconnected with each of the plurality of client computing devices, suchas via a communication network. The aggregator computer may further beconfigured to receive the individual selections of the input prompts bythe user of each of the plurality of client computing devices so as togenerate the qualitative and/or quantitative judgment. The aggregatorcomputer may also be configured to generate, for transmission to theinteractive display of selected ones of the plurality of clientcomputing devices, a display of an aggregated qualitative and/orquantitative judgment of the activity, such as based on at least some ofthe received individual selections of the input prompts by the user ofeach of the plurality of client computing devices. In variousembodiments, the aggregator computer may further be configured toreceive, e.g., via the communication network, an official qualitativeand/or quantitative judgment from an official application executed on anofficial computing device, such as that of an official judge of thecompetition. In such an instance, the aggregator computer may then beconfigured to generate, for transmission to the interactive display ofthe selected ones of the plurality of client computing devices, adisplay of the official qualitative and/or quantitative judgment, suchas from the official judges of the competition. The system mayadditionally include an administrator computer that is in communicationwith at least the aggregator computer, where the administrator computeris configured to receive an input representing a qualitative and/orquantitative limit and/or time limit for users to enter their individualselections of the qualitative and/or quantitative judgment of theactivity, beyond which limit scores will be discounted or discardedaltogether.

More specifically, FIGS. 7A-7P provides a client application of a usercomputing device, e.g., a mobile telephone, smart watch, and the like,that allows a user to engage in an athletic event in a more intimate andsignificant manner. For instance, the client application of the platformmay be configured for generating a user interface so as to allow a user,with the appropriate authorizations, to participate in, e.g., evaluate,score, a performance or competition, and thereby become more invested inthe outcome of the performance and more intrinsically engaged with theevent itself. In certain embodiments, the client application cangenerate a series of screens via the user interface so as to prompt theuser for entering the information that is fundamental to setting upand/or organizing their user profile. The user interface will prompt theuser to enter information about themselves, including their name,residence, as well as whether they wish to interact with the systemanonymously or not. Likewise, the system may allow the user to selecttheir category and/or level of participation, for instance, as acompetitor, a judge, an organizer, a scorer, commentators, and the like.

As can be seen with respect to FIG. 7A, the user interface may presentan interactive window e.g., for evaluating, scoring, making a selection,and the like, whereby the user may take an action, such as select ascore, make a judgement or suggestion, or evaluation, or the like, withrespect to the event or a competitors performance in the event, such aswhere the window presents to the user interface one or more categoriesto select from. As depicted in FIG. 7A, a scoring matrix is provided,where the scoring matrix is configured as a number pad. In thisinstance, the scoring may be input into the system by the userinteracting with the number pad to select a number, e.g., from a rangeof numbers, such as from 1 to 10, by which to judge a competitor'sperformance. It is to be noted that although a numeric interface isdepicted, any reasonable mechanism for judging, scoring, evaluating,commenting, etc. may be employed, such as a scale, for instance asliding scale, an alphabetic scale, a scale of icons, such as from happyto sad faces, and the like.

In various instances, as depicted in FIG. 7B, a list of activities to beperformed, such as particular routine in a list of routines, forexample, in a professional, semi-professional, or amateur sporting eventlike gymnastics, X-games, other extreme sports, a boxing or MMA match,or a list of maneuvers in a surfing, skating, skate-boarding, bikingroutine, and the like. As depicted, a list of surfing maneuvers are setforth, but any list of maneuvers for a given activity may be set forthso as to describe the activities that may be scored in relation to theunderlying activity. In various embodiments, the maneuver selected maybe a suggestion for the participant to perform the selected maneuver, orthe maneuver selected may represent an action that describes orotherwise characterizes the maneuver the actor actually performed.

Specifically, as indicated, the evaluation and/or scoring may beperformed in relation to one or more categories of activities, such asmaneuvers that may inherently have point modifiers that automaticallyadjust a predetermined or previously entered score, or may be entered tojustify the score given. In certain instances, the list may includetypical characteristics of the actual performer, such as theirsportsmanship or their attitude while performing the maneuver or eventgenerally, and the selection may be used to automatically add orsubtract from an entered score or evaluation. A description of theactivities and/or their difficulty levels and/or how to employ them in ascoring methodology may also be described and presented at the userinterface.

Additionally, as set forth in FIGS. 7C and 7D, if desired, the user maytag the score, or an image captured, for entry into the system andtransmission to others. For instance, as can be seen with respect toFIG. 7D, the user may add notes to their evaluation and/or score forentry into the system, if desired. Such notes may also be tagged, e.g.,by the user, and/or connected to a specific performance and/or scoreentered by the user. Further, with respect to FIG. 7E, the user may alsoselect to give the system privileges to interact with one or more oftheir social media platforms(s). For instance, the user may allow thesystem access to their FACEBOOK®, TWITTER®, INSTAGRAM®, FLICKR®,PINTEREST®, SNAPCHAT®, WHATSAPP®, and other like social media accounts.

Likewise, the user can specify for the system the other users, e.g.,judges, competitors, and/or other scorers who they follow, or the systemmay determine the same autonomously and/or automatically, as describedin greater detail herein below with respect to a suitably configuredAPI, web-crawler, spider, robot, bot, and/or skimmer of the ArtificialIntelligence Module, that is used to gather and/or harvest onlineinformation, which information may be employed by the system to average,weight, rank, adjust, and/or otherwise perform a statistical analysis onthe evaluations and/or scores entered by various users, such as in thecase of determining and/or predicting bias.

Information about the online usage and practices of a user of the systemmay be gathered based on what sites various users of the system visit,how they comment and/or interact with those sites and/or other users onthose sites, such as the messages they send, texts or images or otherdata they post, as well as the types of engagements and/or relationshipsthey form thereon. This data may be collected by the system and may befed into the A/I module, e.g., a machine learning and/or imageprocessing platform, and may then be used as data points to form and/orstructure a searchable database and/or image graph of the system. Inparticular instances, the data may be text data, email data, photo orother image data, data pertaining to online usage, postings, searches,metadata pertaining thereto, and the like. In further instances, thedata may be communicated by the user and/or their engagement with asocial media platform, such as FACEBOOK®, TWITTER®, INSTAGRAM®,SNAPCHAT®, WHATSAPP®, and the like.

In various instances, the user may allow the system to notify them whenparticular events occur, and/or when particular participants arecompeting, in which case the user may be granted access to the eventinformation, so as to encourage the user to attend and/or otherwiseparticipate in the event. The user may also be notified when otherusers, e.g., those they follow, attend events, and/or participate, suchas by entering evaluations and/or scores into the system, in which case,the user may be notified when other users post evaluation, scores, orcomments and/or when those evaluations, scores, and/or comments evidencebias. This may be useful for keeping evaluators, scorers, commentates,and/or judges honest, such as when they know their entries may bepublished, broadcast, or otherwise transmitted to others.

More particularly, as described in greater detail herein below, onceaccess to the user's online usage characteristics, including socialmedia usage, has been granted, the system may then be configured toautomatically access these platforms, and mine them for data that may beuseful to the present system and its users, such as for determiningauthenticity and/or bias. For example, the system may analyze thevarious social media of the participants, with respect to theirfollowers, so as to determine relationships between the variousparticipants, such as from identifying common followers, and/or thecommentary thereof, posted on social media. Once set up and authorizedvia the graphical user interface of the client device, the user thereofmay then select from the available events to participate in.

Accordingly, a feature of enhancing fan engagement allows for leveragingeach fan's social network because of the fan's involvement in the event.Particularly, the more involved a fan is in the event, the more likelythey will be to post about their experiences on one or more social mediaplatforms, thereby peaking the interest of others that may not bepresent at the event, and/or indicating their increased level andengagement with the event. In such an instance, interested users viewingand/or receiving the posting who are not at the event may then bemotivated to either go to the event and/or watch or listen to abroadcast of the event, such as on the application or other availablemedia. As described herein, an event to be entered into the system maybe configured by the system to be live streamed contemporaneously viathe application interface. In a manner such as this, a positive feedbackloop may be generated wherein the audience engagement is promoted, themore the audience grows, and the more the audience grows the moreaudience engagement there will be, and consequently, the more sponsorswill be willing to invest in such events and/or competitors, e.g., thosewho are trending, and/or organizers of such events. Hence, a usefulimplementation of the system is promoting a social collaboration betweenparticipant actors, e.g., those performing the event, and participantevaluators and/or scorers, e.g., those informally judging the event, andas well as their friends and followers.

More particularly, event participation may be enhanced by encouragingusers to engage their social media platforms, with respect to theirparticipation in the event, in a more meaningful way by rewarding themfor doing so. For instance, any suitable rewarding scheme may beemployed so as to embolden social communication of the event betweenthose at the event and those not at the event, such as by grantingpoints for every appropriate post, which points may be redeemed forcoupons for purchase discounted goods from the sponsors or others, orfor free products, cash rewards, and the like. Accordingly, an elementof the system is the use of real time polling and/or voting, whichpolling may be used to determine audience engagement, audience opinion,audience projections, audience interpretations, predictions, and thelike. Such polling may be in answer to a prompt, may be an electronicsurvey, a questionnaire, in short answer format, and the like, whichprompt is generated and provided to the user s by the system. Throughthe use of real-time polling and/or the sharing of contemporaneousresults data and commentary, a predictive model of participant behaviormay be determined, an analysis made, and feedback presented of thepredictive analysis.

Further, as described in detail herein, the user may give the systemaccess to one or more of their social media platforms that they use suchas for maintaining social contact and connectivity their social base.This is a useful feature of the system because it will allow the systemto better determine possible bias in scoring activity. This may be donefor one or more, e.g., all, of the participants in the event, such asall of judges, competitors/performers, evaluators, and scorers. Asdepicted, a screen for a competitor is set forth in FIG. 7F, where thescreen displays the competitors identity, designator, bio, and otherinformation about the competitor. An additional feature of the system isa screen that will allow the user to predict or otherwise select awinner of the round or entire event, and/or may allow the user topredict the score or the reasoning behind what the event outcome willbe. A time left window may also be displayed, for instance, forindicating for how much longer the voting window will remain open andvotes will be received and counted. The designator for which round ofthe event the competitors are in may also be displayed.

FIG. 7G shows a user interface in which a portion of the window isconfigured for video streaming and another portion contains informationabout the current or a future, e.g., next, event. For instance, as shownin FIG. 7G, the user may view a real-time display of the current eventsuch that a portion of the user's display is configured for streamingaudio and/or video, e.g., of a participant presently competing in a heator round of the event, and another portion may be configured fordisplaying a real-time countdown until the heat or round is over and/oruntil when the next heat or event is to begin.

Particularly, in using the APP, the user may opt to view a live streamor previously recorded spectator event, such as by selecting a togglepresented at the user dashboard of the client device. The display may bepresented in a number of sizes or display formats, such as where thedisplay takes up the entire screen, or a substantial portion thereof, soas to allow the user to watch the event on the display of theircomputing device. However, in various instances, a split screen may beprovided whereby the user can both watch the event, and participate withthe system in a number of different ways, such as by evaluating and/orscoring the event, making notes and messages regarding the event, and/orreceiving the same. In this instance, a real-time countdown until thenext spectator event is presented. However, as shown in FIG. 7H, thepresent score board may be presented on a split screen or as an entirescreen of the device.

As indicated, the system may be configured for providing a live streamof an event. Particularly, the system may include an imaging mechanism,such as a camera and/or video camera, for capturing images of the event,its competitors and performers, and/or spectators, which images may thenbe transmitted over a network, such as the Internet or a cellularnetwork, to a server of the system, which server may then broadcast theimages to one or more other client devices connectable to and/orassociated with the system. The camera may be a professionalhigh-definition, high-grade digital video camera, and the like, or maybe a simple, low resolution video recording camera, such as the typeendogenous to a mobile computing device, such as a video camera inherentto a mobile telephone, tablet computing device, and/or smart watch.Particularly, in one embodiment, the camera may be a camera configuredfor broadcasting the event, which camera is made accessible to thesystem server, such as by connection therewith via a suitably configuredinternet connection. In other instances, the camera recorder may be acamera of a mobile telephone, which may not otherwise be configured forbroadcasting the event, but through its connection through the internetor cellular network, it can now be used to broadcast an event to otherusers of the system.

Accordingly, in a manner such as this, the system may be configured forinteracting with a previously configured broadcasting system so as tobroadcast an event, e.g., nationwide, or the system may be configuredfor interacting with the endogenous camera of a typical cellular phone,so as to allow local system users to broadcast an event that wouldotherwise not be configured for being broadcast. Specifically, thesystem may include a camera that is capable of capturing or otherwiserecording images, and is connectable itself or through the endogenouscomponents of the mobile phone, to a network whereby the captured imagesmay be transmitted to an encoder, in a manner so that the capturedimages may be suitably encoded, and once encoded the images may then beprocessed, e.g., via an HTTP-based live streaming (HLS) or other similarcommunications protocol, and transmitted and/or broadcast to various ofthe user client devices of the system, such as through the APP. It is tobe noted that the HLS stream is particular to APPLE® devices, but othersuch streams may be configured for transmitting the captured images overother user devices, such as with respect to MICROSOFT®, GOOGLE®,SAMSUNG®, FIREFOX®, and the like. In a manner such as this the HLS maybe presented at the user interface presented on the display of theclient device through the downloadable APP, such as presented at FIG.7G.

FIG. 7H shows a user interface that displays a competitor scoreboard. Asshown in FIG. 7H, the user may view a real-time display of the currentevent, e.g., a scoreboard showing the current standings of theparticipants in the event and their scores, such that a portion of theuser's display is configured for showing the scoreboard, and asindicated above, a portion of the screen may be streaming a real-timevideo of the event. Particularly, the user may view a competitorscoreboard. In the present example, the scores displayed include: theuser's entered score, the average unofficial score entered by users ofthe client application, and the score given by the judges. The systemallows the crowd attending the event to be engaged in the scoring, andenables alignment of individual user scores to crowd scores and judgescores. Further, as described herein, the entered scores may becorrected for bias, such as based on the manner by which the scores areentered, e.g., are they consistently higher or lower than the crowdand/or judges, such as with respect to given performers or competitors;based on the identity of the user and/or device, e.g., have scores fromthe same person or device been entered more than once; based on thetiming of score entry, e.g., have the scores been entered to long beforeor too long after a given timing window for entering scores, such as toolong before or after an event has begun; and/or based on thegeographical location of the user or client device, such as determinedby the client device GPS or cellular triangulation, and the like.Additional methods for determining bias may also be employed by thesystem so as to correct for potential bias by the various evaluators,scorers, and/or commenters of the system. For instance, as described ingreater detail herein below, the system's A/I module may be configuredfor evaluating the scores, location, and the timing of their entry forbias, and may correct or discard the scores accordingly.

Likewise, with respect to FIG. 7H, the user may engage a toggle via theuser dashboard whereby the user opts to view a competitor scoreboard ofthe event of their choice, and may choose to have a live stream of theevent also presented at the user interface. However, in variousinstances, the user may opt to have the scoreboard displayed in itsentirety, such as in a power savings mode, or the user may elect apartial screen mode. In certain instances, the user may toggle betweenscreen portions, such as to bring up a scoring interface whereby theuser can both watch and score the event at the same time. If the userhas scored the event, the user may view the score recorded by the user,the score given by the official judges, and the score given by thecrowd, e.g., via the scoreboard interface portion.

FIG. 7I shows a user interface for selecting a representation of acompetitor in an event for uploading into the system. As can be seenwith respect to FIG. 7I, a portion of the user interface may allow auser to demarcate and/or distinguish between various competitors bydifferent selectable uniforms, e.g., jersey, pictures, avatars, colors,designs, and the like. Another portion of the display may allow the userto view specific information about the competitors, events, judges,including the name of the event, the current time, the heat, thecompetitor level (e.g., GROM, junior men's, senior men's, juniorwomen's, senior women's′), and the like.

FIGS. 7I and 7J shows a user interface for scoring and/or evaluating acompetitor selected by the user. For instance, the user may togglebetween screens displaying a wide variety of ways in which to representthe competitors participating within an event, and once thecompetitor/performer has been demarcated, here by jersey color, the usermay engage the system and participate in the event by recording a score.The scoring window as depicted in FIG. 7J may include the competitor'sname, the competitor's social media, e.g., INSTAGRAM®, username, theheat status, e.g., in this instance, wave number (in a surfingcompetition), and the representation, e.g., jersey color, selected bythe user in the previous screen. Particularly, once the user hasselected a participant to score, the user will be led to a screen forwhich to enter an evaluation, in this instance a score, via analphanumeric keypad, voice recording, tick box screen, or otherevaluating and/or scoring interface. Once the user has entered orrecorded the score for a participant, the user may view the enteredscore on the screen, confirm, and submit or re-submit the score into theAPP, which then gets transmitted to the central sever of the system.

FIG. 7K shows a user interface in which the user may view thecompetitors in relation to each other by score. As seen in FIG. 7K, theuser has the option to view a window displaying a competitivescoreboard. A portion of the screen displays information about thecompetitive event including but not limited to the name of the event,the event sponsor, the event category, the heat, and the scoring data.For each competitor listed on the scoreboard, the scoreboard displaysthe competitor's name, the top three scores received by the competitoraveraged together, and the competitor's ranking in the competition. Forall competitors that are not the top competitor, the number of pointsnecessary to win the competition is listed with the competitor'sinformation. Other competitor and/or scoring metrics or statistics mayalso be provided here for display. In this instance, the top scores areaveraged, from which average a final score is presented, and from thisaverage the competitor's relative standing is presented, such as in theorder of the standing. Other mathematical and/or statistical informationmay also be provided and displayed, such as the average, the mean, oneor more standard deviations. As indicated, the statistical informationmay be accessed by tapping the screen in a manner to bring up a further,e.g., tagged, screen that presents an alternative view of the relevantinformation. Particularly, the user engages the user interface to pullup competitor information, to pull up scoring criteria, to evaluate orscore the competitor, e.g., based on the scoring event, and to see therelative scoring status of the other competitors, judges, and otherscorers, and the like. Once the user has scored a participant, the usermay choose to view a leaderboard of all competitors for an event.

FIG. 7L shows a user interface, which may be accessed by togglingbetween screens, e.g., by tapping relevant prompts on the userinterface, and with respect to FIG. 7L, the user may view moreinformation about an event and share the information on a socialplatform. For instance, the user may select to take a picture and/ormake a recording of the event, and may then, using the APP, upload thephoto and/or video or audio recording, such as to their account or tothe system home page or to other social media platform, for viewing byother participants, friends, followers, and the like. Particularly, inthe user interface in FIG. 7L, the user of the client application hasthe option to view more information about the events including the topcompetitors or past results, score the event, sign in/out of theapplication, and/or share event scores with anyone in the user's socialnetwork or other participants in the even.

For example, given a previously scored event, the user may choose toview and/or share the results of the event with other participantsand/or the user's social network such as by drafting a message, taking apicture, recording a video or audio file, accessing the storage thereof,and pressing a share button. The user may also choose to view aleaderboard and/or a direct or indirect livestream of the current eventfrom the same screen. A past event may also be viewed, in someinstances. The user may also choose to sign in/out of the clientapplication from the same screen by pressing a sign in/out button. Amenu of other screens may also be accessed by the present screen wherebythe user may toggle between various others of the screens of the system,such as by selecting them, e.g., pressing them, on the capacitive touchscreen of the display of the device. The user may also choose to scorean event from the same screen if there is an event available to score bypressing a score button.

FIG. 7M shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about the event as well as a real-time countdown displayingthe remaining amount of time to score a competitor before the enteredscore is given a lower weight or eliminated. In FIG. 7M, a portion ofthe user interface may display information about the event including thetop competitors and past results. The user may also choose to score theevent from this screen. Another portion of the screen is configured todisplay in real-time the amount of time remaining to score the currentcompetitor without algorithmic deductions or elimination. If thecompetitor is scored outside of this window, the A/I “weight” and/or“bias” module may give the user's score less weight or discard theentered score. Particularly, the user may choose to view the results ofan event by pressing a results button. Likewise, the user may choose toview a leaderboard of the current event from the same or a differentscreen, such as by toggling through a menu of options. The user may alsochoose to sign in/out of the client application from the same screen bypressing a sign in/out button. The user may also choose to score orcomment on an event from the same screen given a real-time countdown oftime remaining to score a participant in another portion of the samescreen without algorithmic deductions.

FIG. 7N shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about the event as well as score the event, such as using avoice recognition protocol. In FIG. 7N, a portion of the user interfacemay display information about the event including the top competitorsand past results. Another portion of the screen is configured to acceptscores from the user either via a numeric keypad or through voicerecognition. Particularly, the user may choose to view the results of anevent by pressing a results button. The results may be shown infull-screen or partial screen mode. If in partial screen mode, the usermay choose to view a leaderboard and/or a live-streaming of the currentevent, and from the same screen, the user may access a scoring platformand may choose to score an event, e.g., from the same screen, via voicerecording or numeric keypad.

FIG. 7O shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about an event. The user may choose to view the results ofan event by pressing a results button. The user may also choose to viewa leaderboard of the current event. And the user may also choose toevaluate or score an event, e.g., by pressing a score button. As can beseen with respect to FIG. 7P, a user of the application can select acompetitor to record and can enter that recording into the system, whichfile can be viewed and downloaded by other users of the system, and ifdesired, can be directly uploaded to the user's social medias accountsfrom the application.

Accordingly, in view of the above, in various embodiments, aninteractive, crowd-source communication platform for judging an activityby one or more participants of an event having the activity may beprovided. The platform may include a plurality of client applicationprograms that are distributed to a corresponding plurality of mobiledevices having an interactive electronic display. In such an instance,each client application program may be configured with a mobile deviceidentifier (ID) of a mobile device executing a corresponding clientapplication program, a user ID of a user associated with the mobiledevice, user information, and/or location data representing a locationof the mobile device. In such an instance, each client applicationprogram may be further configured to display, on the interactiveelectronic display of a corresponding mobile device, a plurality ofinput prompts, such as where each of the plurality of input promptsrepresent a qualitative and/or quantitative evaluation or judgment ofthe activity. The plurality of input prompts may be configured to beindividually selectable by a user of each of the plurality of mobiledevices so as to allow them to input a user judgment of the activity. Insuch an instance, the user judgment may include a time stamp as well asjudging data representing the qualitative and/or quantitative judgmentof the activity by the user, which may be according to a predeterminedjudgment criteria, such as a criteria configured in the correspondingclient application program. The client application program may furtherbe configured to enable the user to submit the judging data to acommunication network.

A server system may also be included, such as where the server isconnected with the plurality of client application programs via thecommunication network, and may be synchronized with a performance of theactivity. For instance, the server system may be configured to receiveone or more of the judging data, the time stamp, the mobile device ID,the user ID, the user information, and the location data from eachsubmitting user of one of the plurality of client programs, and mayfurther be configured to filter the scores according to the time stamp,the user or device ID, and/or a determined bias of one or more of theauthorized users. Accordingly, the server system may be configured togenerate an aggregated score from the filtered scores, such as fortransmission to each of the plurality of client application programs fordisplay in the interactive electronic display with the one or moreevents of the activity.

As can be seen with respect to FIGS. 8A-8D, another useful feature ofthe system is the timeout window. Particularly, in various instances, itmay be desirable to limit the evaluations and/or scores to be consideredin judging and/or scoring an event, entered by a user of the system,based on the timing in which those comments and/or scores are entered.For instance, during an athletic competition, such as a surfing, boxing,jujitsu, MMA, or a gymnastic event, e.g., where the competition includesa number of actions or heats performed over time, the system maygenerate a time period or window within which scores will be accepted,and beyond which scores will not be accepted. In certain instances, thetimeout window may be based on an absolute time period, such as a 3, 5,10, 20, 30 minutes or more, such as up to 1 hour, 2, hours, 5, hours, ormore, even up to 1 or 2 or 3 or more days or more.

Alternatively, the timeout window may be dynamic, such as a timeoutwindow that is based on the number and/or timing of score entries beingentered into the system and when. For instance, in particular instances,the system may be configured for determining a velocity of scores beingentered into the system and thereby determining when to open and when toclose the timeout window. Specifically, during and immediately after anaction or event, a certain number of user inputs, e.g., scores will beentered into the system, such as at a certain rate. This may thereforedefine a scoring window, which scoring window may be configured toremain open for a time period during which scores may be entered intothe system and be counted, such as where the time period for countingsuch scores is determined by that point of maximum velocity. Morespecifically, the system may first determine a peak score number (e.g.,based on the number of entries) and/or peak score velocity (e.g., basedon the number and timing of entries), and based on that determinationthe length or range of the timeout window period, during which enteredscores may be counted or otherwise considered, may then be determined.

In certain instances, the timeout window may be configured for openingbased on when a certain number or level of velocity of scores are beingentered, and may further be configured for staying open until thatnumber or level (or other designated number or level) is no longer beingmaintained, e.g., until it falls below a designated number or velocityof entries. For instance, the timeout window may be configured forstaying open while there is a certain number of scores being enteredover a certain period of time, but when the rate of scoring drops tobelow a certain number and/or rate, the system may close the scoringwindow. In various instances, this may be useful because the numberand/or rapidity by which one or more scores is entered into the system,e.g., by a mobile scoring device, may indicate the extent of the vestedinterest of the scorer, namely those scores entered during orimmediately after the event may indicate a greater interest in theactual event or performance, while those trailing behind may indicate alagging interest.

Hence, for a particular competition, within an event, a given rate ofscores per time (e.g., seconds, minutes, hours, etc.) may be determinedby which to keep a generated scoring window open. This may occur in asituation where one competitor begins to compete, a scoring window maybe opened, scores come in with increasing numbers, a maximal scorenumber or velocity is reached, and based on that scoring velocity ascoring rate may be determined, and then based on that rate, the size ofthe timeout window may be determined. In such an instance, the timeoutwindow may define the period, e.g., length of time, within which enteredscores will be counted, such that scores entered before or after thetime period will not be counted, and those entered shortly after thewindow opens and shortly before the window closes may be discounted.Particularly, such scores may form a cluster within which cluster thescores will be considered countable, e.g., valid, and those outside ofthe cluster will not be considered, or considered invalid, e.g., rangingfrom a hot to a warm to a cooling and to a cold period, where the coldperiod represents scores that will not be considered, and the warmer thescores the more weight they are given, where the hot scores are the mostimmediate to the activity and within the largest cluster.

In various instances, a first cluster may demarcate the beginning of afirst competitor's performance in the event, such as where a firsttimeout window is opened to allow for evaluation of the first performer;and a second cluster of scoring may demarcate the beginning a secondcompetitor's performance in the event, such as where the second timeoutwindow is opened to allow for evaluation of the second performer. Thismay be repeated for third, fourth, fifth, competitors, etc. Forinstance, the clusters of scoring number and/or velocity may be used bythe system to not only determine the periods of time during which scoresmay be counted, but may also be used by the system to determine anddemarcate when one competitors performance begins and ends as well aswhen another competitor's performance begins and then subsequently ends.In other words, the system may be configured for distinguishing betweendifferent competitor's performances, and for allocating scores enteredto the appropriate competitor, such as based on population densitywithin the cluster, cluster size, and/or with regard to otherstatistically relevant factors.

Accordingly, in various embodiments, the system may be configured fordetermining when one competitor begins a performance, such as within aheat of an event, and when they subsequently end, and for allocatingevaluations and/or scores entered to the final count for thatcompetitor, and likewise, the system can then determine when a secondcompetitor's performance begins and ends and for allocating evaluationsand/or scores entered in judgement of the second competitor'sperformance. Consequently, based on the system's determination of whenthe performance begins and ends, the system may then open andappropriately size the timeout window during which period evaluationsand/or scores entered will be allocated to the final evaluation and/orscore count for that competitor. The opening and/or closing of the timeout window and/or the determining of the score count period may bedetermined manually or autonomously by the system.

For instance, in one instance, the opening and the closing of thetimeout window may be performed manually. For example, a systemadministrator may be tasked with viewing each of the heats of the event,and thereby determining when each given competitor begins theirperformance, and therefore, opening or otherwise initiating thebeginning of a timeout window, and also determining when the competitorends their performance, and therefore, closing the timeout window. Thismay be done for each competitor in each heat, and for each heat in eachevent, e.g., manually.

In other instances, the timeout window may be initiated and opened andthen closed automatically by the system. As indicated above, the openingand closing of the timeout window may be determined autonomously by thesystem, such as based on cluster factoring, such as where the systemreceives a number of entries, such as evaluations and/or scores, whichentries may be collected and/or analyzed by the bias module for bias.The entries may then be aggregated into a cluster, and/or factored, orotherwise subjected to a statistical analysis, such as to determine oneor more of a score number, a score mean or average, a median score, orother statistically relevant factor. Based on the result of thisdetermination, a timeout window may be generated and applied to theentered data, and the length of the time-out period may also be set,such as where the period length determines at what point in timerelevant to the cluster scores will be counted, discounted, and/ordiscarded all together, such as being entered into the system too soonor too late. In this manner the characteristics of the timeout windowmay be dynamic. In various instances, the system may determine thebeginning, the ending, and/or the length of the timeout window, and/orwhich scores to count and how to weight them, based on an analysis ofprior heats for prior events, such as for the same competitors.Particularly, this data may be transmitted to the A/I module and/or adeep learning protocol implemented thereby so as to adequately anddynamically determining the opening, closing, and period for the timeoutwindow, as well as for the ranking, weighting, counting, discounting,and/or discarding of entries, e.g., scores.

Additionally, another method for automatically initiating the openingand/or closing and/or the period of a timeout window is through trackingthe motions of the various participants in the competition orperformance. For instance, as discussed above, the system may include asmart watch, or phone, or other smart device, that is configured forbeing worn, or carried, by a performer in the event. In such aninstance, the smart device may include a processor, a communicationsmodule, configured for connecting to a wireless network, a GPS, and/orone or more sensors, such as an accelerometer and/or gyroscope.Accordingly, the smart device may then be in wireless communication withthe server such that a change in activity of the wearer in competitionmeans that a performance has begun, which may be detected by the one ormore sensors of the device, such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, andthe like, and then that data may be communicated to the server, over thewireless network. Once received by the server, the data may be analyzed,a timeout window may be automatically opened, and may stay open untilafter the sensors in the smart device communicate a change of activitythat is indicative of the end of the performance. Likewise, once the endof the performance has been determined by the server, the timeout windowmay be closed, and the entries evaluated.

One or more other characteristics may be employed to determine thelength of time during which the time-out window is to remain open,during which time period evaluations, scores, and/or comments may beentered into the system and when. Likewise, in various instance, thetime period may be increased or decreased, such as determined by the oneor more characteristics. This may be exemplified in a surfing or othercompetition, like an Olympic competition, where there is a beginning andend to one performance, and then a brief window of time before the nextcompetitor competes. In such an instance, during the competition, thehot window will be open, and after the competition, and before the nextcompetitor begins, the window will grow increasingly colder, and will beclosed prior to or at the beginning of the next performance, when a newhot window will be open for judging the new competitor.

For instance, in a dynamic environment, such as when a surfer in acompetition catches a wave, a judgement window will be open, scores willbe entered, evaluated, weighted, and/or tallied for the surfer currentlyon the wave, but once he or she is no longer on the wave, a brief timeperiod will be open for the continued entry of scores judging his or herperformance on the wave, which will close at about the time the nextsurfer catches a wave. Alternatively, the scoring window may be openduring the period for the heat and scores can be entered at any time forcompetitors competing in that heat, designating to whom the scoresbelong, and when the heat is over, scores can no longer be entered forthe competitors of that heat. In either instance, no scores will becounted after the window has closed, as these scores are less likely tobe as valid as warmer scores, and thus, could contaminate the results,and as indicated the window may be open for longer or shorter periods oftime, such as from hours to minutes to mere seconds, depending on howthe system and/or competition is organized.

Likewise, scores that are entered at the beginning of the performance orheat will be weighted heavier than those entered towards the end. Thiswill prevent those who have not really seen the performance from havingundue influence on the scoring, such as by entering high scores afterthe event has concluded, which could be an indication of bias.Additionally, as previously described, scores that are outliers, such astoo high, e.g., all “10s”, or too low, e.g., all “1s”, or scores enteredfor categories that should be emptied, may be weighted lower and/or maybe discarded.

FIGS. 8A-8D shows a user interface in which the user may utilize screenswiping to score an event and/or to view a previously entered score fora competitor in the event. For instance, FIG. 8A shows a user interfaceenabling the user to navigate a series of menus, such as by swiping inthe indicated direction. Particularly, by swiping right on thecapacitive sensing touch screen device the user may be brought to ascoring screen, whereby the user may be able to look up the statistics,e.g., scores, pertaining to competitors who have previously competedand/or are presently competing in the event. In certain instances, theuser may score the event by performing a swiping motion on the screen.For example, given that a user has begun to engage with a spectatorevent, the user may swipe, e.g., right, on a smart phone to score aparticipant. Likewise, in various instances, the user may swipe to amenu that will allow them to see the current or past results of a heatand/or event or a competitor thereof. FIG. 8B shows a user interfacemenu enabling the user to swipe, e.g., left, on a touch screen device toview the results of the event. FIG. 8C shows a user interface menuenabling the user to swipe, e.g., up, on a touch screen device to viewthe previous competitor to the current competitor in an event. FIG. 8Dshows a menu user interface enabling the user to swipe down on a touchscreen device to view the next competitor in the event.

Regardless of the interface, once scores have been entered into thesystem, the system may analyze those scores for a variety of differentpurposes, such as for bias. Bias can be determined in many ways such ascan be seen with respect to FIG. 8E. Specifically, in the graph in FIG.8E, the left-hand, y-axis, represents a score range, for scoring acompetitor in a given performance, e.g., heat, in a given event.Likewise, the horizontal, x-axis, demarcates the length of time duringwhich scores may be entered. Accordingly, as can be seen by the graph,scores may be entered by participants of the event, e.g., observers,evaluators, and scorers, such as by interacting with a client interfaceon their mobile device to enter the scores into the system, during anopen window of time. As can be seen, the scores may form clusters,showing that most observers score the action similarly, around the sametime, with their being fewer outliers.

Further, as seen by the shaded regions of the graph, moving through timefrom left, at time 0, to the right, as more time passes, as less andless scores are entered, the less the entered scores will be rankedand/or weighted. In this instance, scores may be entered until thetimeout portion of the window is achieved, which at such point scoresmay still be entered into the system, however, they may be given alesser weight than those entered prior to the timeout window phase beingentered. Furthermore, once the timeout window has been exceeded, anyscores entered thereafter may be discarded, as they have been enteredtoo late to be counted, and may be presumed to be biased. It is furthernoted that there are outliers toward the left-hand side of the graph aswell, which scores represent one or more entries that have been enteredtoo early to be counted, such as before the competitors performance hasbegun. These scores may also be discarded.

Additionally, as can be seen with respect to the graph of FIG. 8E, thevarious scores entered into the system appear to cluster around one ormore numbers. These scores can be aggregated, tabulated, analyzed, andused to calculate a mean and an average that may be used to determine,via the methods disclosed herein, one or more statistically importantstandard deviations from which outliers may be determined, scoresranked, weighted, and/or discarded. For instance, as can be seen,various sets of outliers have been determined, and are demarcated in theencircled regions at the edges of the graph. As these outliers appear tobe at the extremes of both high and low scores, while the majority ofscores cluster around the average and/or mean, these outliers may besubjected to further processing, and if bias is determined, they maythen be subjected to a correction process or excluded altogether.

An exemplary instance for determining bias may involve the collecting,aggregating, pooling, ranking, and/or tallying of the numbersrepresenting the scores entered by the users of the system, and onceentered the scores may be subjected to a statistical and/or factoringanalyses, which in some instances may be for the purposes of determininga mean, median, or average score or evaluation, such as a representativescore from which other scores may be measured for bias, and/or asindicated above may be used for determining one or more characteristicsof a timeout window. Hence, in various instances, the system may beconfigured for allocating weight to the received scores and evaluations,such as by increasing the relative value of some entered scores, anddecreasing the relative value, e.g., weight of others. Particularly,throughout the scoring process, the results entered into the system maybe processed through the artificial intelligence engine, which may beconfigured to continuously sample and/or correct the data flowingthrough the system.

For example, as discussed, the system may be configured so as todetermine when an event, such as the beginning of a heat, or aperformance within a heat, is initiated, e.g., a surfer catches a wave,gymnast begins a routine, etc., and based on the number and/or rate ofentry of scores, e.g., of the surfer's maneuvers on the wave, and othersuch particulars, may determine a dynamic window during which scores maybe entered into the system, e.g., when a timeout period begins, whatweight is to be given to the entered scores, if any, and of course, whenthe timeout period is to close, such as where scores entered at a timethat is too late to be fully weighted and/or included at all.

Specifically, as indicated, along with the evaluation, communication,score, and/or other user entered data, other various data may be enteredinto the system and considered such as with respect to ranking and/orweighting, or otherwise evaluating, the entered data. In variousembodiments, this data may include one or more of event identificationdata, event geolocation data, competitor identification data, competitorgeolocation data, competitor movement data, competitor profile data,competitor social factor data, previous competitor performance data,competitor characterization data, competitor image data, useridentification data, user geolocation data, user image data, userprofile data, user social factor data, previous user performance data,user characterization data, relevant outside characterization data,which in this instance, may include environmental factors such as waveidentification and/or prediction data, interval data and mathematicalindex value data, and the like. As indicated, this data may be enteredor otherwise collected by the system, e.g., retrieved by a database ofthe system, and may then be entered into a relevancy queue, such as forconsideration by an analysis, e.g., A/I module of the system, such asfor determining one or more factors relevant to analyzing the entereddata.

For instance, entered and/or collected data may be subjected to analysesby an artificial intelligence module, as disclosed herein below, whichmay include subjecting the data to a deep learning protocol and/or oneor more predictive models and/or one or more statistical and/or factoranalyses and/or a ranking and weighting regime. For example, withrespect to ranking and/or weighting, the A/I module may determine therelative importance of entered collected data, may rank the data, e.g.,with regard to its importance for determining accuracy in weighting andscoring, and may factor the data along one more lines for determiningbias. If bias is determined then the entered scores and evaluations maybe corrected, their weighting may be changed, thereby evoking a changeto the index. This may be done for individual scores or for clusters ofscores. The weighted and/or corrected scores may then be inserted into aresults table, e.g., a table of scores or other evaluations, which whenassembled may be posted or otherwise broadcast to the client devices ofthe various different users.

In this manner, the system can increase accuracy of the judging ofperformances, as well as enforce timely and reasonable user inputs,e.g., scores, evaluations, votes, opinion, results, and other such data,are entered into the system and considered by the judging module duringa consistent time period. In particular embodiments, the configurationof the timeout window may be dynamic and its characteristics may bearranged so as to slide in a manner that may change from performance toperformance, heat to heat, event to event, based on the actions takingplace throughout the system and the actions of the performers in theunderlying event. Hence, the system may be configured to identify whenan action or event has begun, when it is in the middle, and when it hasconcluded, such as when enough time has been given to collect the inputsof the crowd.

For instance, the system can determine when a performer begins aperformance, e.g., catches a wave, and an event begins, and likewise,when a performer, e.g., a surfer, completes his performance. The systemmay also be configured determining when the performer is preparing fortheir next, e.g., subsequent, performance, such as when a surfer ispaddling back out to get back in to a position to catch another wave,which during that period, scores can be discounted, before the timeoutwindow closes, such as when the surfer catches a second wave, andresults for the second wave may then be entered into the system.Accordingly, the timeout period may be dynamic and may be made longer orshorter to accommodate real-time adjustments to performer actionscurrently being taken or are predicted to be taken.

As can be seen with respect to FIG. 8E, the timeout window presented inthis instance, is configured in three different portions. For instance,a first portion is demarcated in white, and includes a majority ofscores that are considered to be timely entered, and presumably to becounted at full weight. A second window is demarcated in light shadingand includes those scores that were entered too late to be given fullweight, but not so late as to be discarded. Likewise, a third window ispresented where the third window includes those scores that were enteredtoo late to be counted. As such, in this embodiment, the scores arepresumed to be biased solely based on a preconfigured timingconsideration.

Further, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 8F, a scoring window ispresented. However, in this instance, not only is the horizontal,timing, axis being considered, such as for timeliness of scores beingentered, but the vertical, y-axis, component of the scores is also beingconsidered, such as for bias. The main section of this graphicalrepresentation of scores is demarcated in white. This section sets fortha mean or average score demarcated by the horizontal hashed line. Thishashed line represents the average of all entered scores, which mayinclude or may not include identified outliers. In this instance, afirst standard deviation is determined and is represented by the hashedline above and the hashed line below the average score line. Three otherstandard differentiations are determined and are demarcated by the threelines above and below the first standard deviation lines. For the sakeof simplicity, these lines also represent whole number scores.

As indicated, even though the scores in the central section were timelyentered, with reference to FIG. 8E, with reference to FIG. 8F, not allscores are given equal weight. Specifically, in the instance of FIG. 8E,the more time that elapsed with respect to the timing of the entry ofscores, the less weight they are given, as the more time elapses fromthe event to score entry, the greater the chance of bias is presumed.However, in the instance of FIG. 8F, the more the scores are outside ofan identified range, in this instance, a first determined standarddifferentiation, the more they are presumed to be biased, and as such,the less weight they will be given by the system. Specifically, withrespect to FIG. 8F, the graph represents the scores entered by theparticipants viewing the event. The X axis is measured in elapsed time.The Y axis is measured in the range of scores by which the competitorsand/or the performers are judged, in this instance, the scores rangefrom 0-10. There are several clusters of scores. For the Y axis, thereare outlying scores clustered on the top portion of the graph, e.g.,near perfect scores, then there are mainstream scores clustered aboutthe middle, and outlying scores clustered toward the bottom of thegraph, e.g., lower than average scores.

Accordingly, as discussed herein, these outlying scores, e.g., in theupper and lower shaded regions of the graph, may be one or more standarddeviations from the mean, and as such may be potentially indicators ofbias, and thus may be discarded by the system and therefore not includedin determining the average or mean. Particularly, in determining thepotential bias for these scores, the scores may be discarded if bias isfound. However, if bias is not found, the scores may be counted but maybe given a lesser weight and/or may be lowered to draw them more intoconformity with the mean. This situation may result where the scorer hasa tendency of over-scoring or under-scoring generally. In such aninstance, the system may generate a training screen whereby the scorermay be given lessons as to how to better score the performers and/orevent. For the scores in the non-shaded section, these scores representthose entries falling within a certain range from a determined presentor historic or predicted mean or average of the distribution of scores.These scores would normally be counted and fully weighted (if bias isnot determined). However, as can be seen with respect to the X axis,scores clustering around the mean, but which were entered in anon-timely manner, may be discounted, e.g., scores in the lighter greysection, or may be completely discarded, e.g., scores in the darker graysection, such as where the scores are entered too late to fairly beconsidered.

More particularly, those scores in the shaded portions above and belowthe non-shaded portions, represent those scores that fall outside of apreconfigured range, and are therefore, may undergo determination forpotential bias, or may simply be presumed to be biased. In such aninstance, those scores falling outside of the predetermined range may begiven less weight than those falling closer to the mean, median and/oraverage. The mean, median or average may be determined in many differentmanners, and likewise, the range within which scores will be counted andequally weighted versus those outside of which will not be equallyweighted and/or may be discarded. For instance, the scores in the shadedportions may be one or more, e.g., 1, 2, 3, or 4 standard deviationsoutside of the determined mean or average. The variance between thescores and various determined regions of scoring may also be determined,and used in appropriately determining boundaries.

More specifically, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 8F, there arefour specific cluster points, demarcated by the darker shaded circles.These clusters represent possible indicators of bias, which would flagthe scores and/or scorers for further examination of bias. In fact,these clusters can be used to set the boundaries of what is consideredto be good and/or questionable data in the first instance. For instance,the two clusters located above the mean (middle dotted) line may be usedto determine the upper outer boundary demarcating scores that may be toohigh for consideration, and likewise the two lower clusters may be usedto determine the lower outer boundary demarcating scores that may be toolow for consideration.

Scores that appear to be biased toward either upper or lower boundariescan be, but need not be discarded. Rather, the scores can simply bediscounted, if the system determines that the perceived bias does notreach to a level sufficient enough to discard the entire score input. Insuch an instance, a mean regression analysis may be run on the data, anda corrective model may be employed to discount the entered score to amore appropriate level, or vice versa, where the entered score may beincreased to a more appropriate level. In either instance, when thesystem determines that an entered score may be the subject of bias, thesystem may perform an analysis on all associated data to betterdetermine if bias exist, and if so, to what extent, and if determinedthe system may then correct the identified bias, e.g., in a meanregression analysis, if it appears that the data can be corrected. Ascan be seen with respect to FIG. 8F, the two upper clusters are of anature that they can be included, but discounted, whereas only one ofthe lower two clusters may be included, and discounted, while the lowerof the two clusters is completely discarded. Further, as noted, theupper and lower clusters, in the shaded portions, may be determined,analyzed, and used to form the range and/or outer limits of scores to bediscarded.

For instance, FIGS. 8G and 8H illustrate examples where bias hasoccurred in the judging of an event. Specifically, a table setting fortha scoring matrix is presented. Along the top-row are listed the columndesignators, where the columns represent designated judges, competitors,scores entered by the judges, the system determined average and mean,along with the variance. Likewise, the last column represents an actiontaken by the system to adjust the weighting of a score due to determinedbias. Specifically, as illustrated in FIG. 8G, a single judge(designated as 11111) is set forth, as well as the scores entered bythat judge for scoring three different performances by the samecompetitor (22222). The scores entered by the judge are 5, 6, and 8.These scores are then compared by the system to a determined average,mean, and variance that were determined for each judge with respect tothe scores entered for all of the performances of this competitor by alljudges.

As can be seen, this judge has consistently entered scores above theaverage, as indicated by the last column of the table. If the varianceis within a prescribed limitation, the scores may be counted but may bedecreased, weighted lower, and/or otherwise corrected. Morespecifically, once a variation from the norm is determined, the sourceof potential bias may be explored. In this instance, the social networkof the judge may be mined along with that of the competitor forcorrelations. For instance, the user profile of the judge and competitorcan be compared, as well as their social media platforms, and anycorrelations between the two, such as in this instance, common friendsbetween them and living in the same city, may be identified by thesystem. As indicated, in this instance, the judge and competitors havebeen identified through their user profile and social network as beingfriends, and these factors may be considered by the writhing, e.g., A/Imodule in determining bias. Any bias from this connection observed bythe system may then be accounted for, and/or if necessary the scores maybe adjusted.

Likewise, the opposite scenario is presented in FIG. 8H, where throughthe processes described herein, the judge and competitor are determinedto be correlated and related as non-friends. The system, therefore, hasflagged this interaction for a determination of bias. This isexemplified by the fact that the judge consistently underscores theperformance of the competitor, and as such the system may adjust theweight to be given to the scores, such as by increasing them by adetermined correction factor, or they may be discarded altogether. Inboth instances, the scores entered where not beyond a level ofcorrection, and therefore the scores were able to be saved by beingcorrected upward, but in other instances, the scores may be outside ofthe determined range, which in such an instance the scores may bediscarded. However, it is better to include as many data points aspossible so as to make the final scores stronger, more relevant, and thesystem more accurate. Hence, as can be seen with respect to FIGS. 8G and8H, the system may be configured for mining available data to determinerelevant relationships, and to then build a table or graph of therelationships, such as a knowledge graph, described herein, which graphmay be configured for determining relationships between any and allvarious data points between the competitors and evaluators, e.g.,judges.

Accordingly, a unique aspect of the system is its usefulness fordetermining and calling out bias, and in view thereof eliminating it.Bias may come in many forms, such as by one or more evaluators andjudges entering a score of a competitor's performance in an event oractivity that appears, on its face or upon further analysis, to not becompletely reasonable and/or objective. Such bias, for instance, may befounded on any of a number of different factors, such as nationalism,e.g., country of origin, particular demographics, such as age, sex,ethnicity, cultural background, bias due to positive or negativerelationships, such as friends, enemies, or competitors, and the like.Bias may be identified from many different sources, such as viaaccessing private or publically available information of a participant,competitor, and/or judge of the event. For instance, accessibleinformation, e.g., via a suitably configured API, may include variousmodes of social media, including FACEBOOK®, TWITTER®, INSTAGRAM®,FLICKR®, PINTEREST®, SNAPCHAT®, WHATSAPP®, and the like. Such mediadatabases may be searched and mined for data that may then be fed into aseparate database, such as a database associated with the system, whichdatabase may be populated with data from each of the participants,competitors, and judges of the event, as described herein.

The collected data may then be structured into a table or graph, orother relational infrastructure, such as a hash table or data tree orknowledge graph, which may then be used to identify correlations and/orrelationships between the data. Such relationships may then be weightedand mined to determine correlations between those involved in an event,which data may then be fed into an artificial intelligence engine todetermine and/or predict the presence of bias. Hence, the present systemmay be configured for receiving and incorporating event related personaldata, as well as additional information, of those associated with anevent, to better determine accuracy of the evaluating, judging, and/orscoring of the event. Additional information may include an analysis ofvarious social media, e.g., FACEBOOK®, postings of photos, comments,and/or likes or dislikes, as well as who they friend or de-friend, whothey like, what and/or who a person follows, e.g., on INSTAGRAM®, and/orwhat they post on the internet.

Such an analysis allows for a great quantity of data to be collected andanalyzed so as to derive one or more conclusions, such as a conclusionas related to bias in judging an event. These conclusions can bedirected solely to the event in progress, past events, and/or futureevents, e.g., regarding the quantity and/or quality of bias at a judgingand/or competing and/or scoring level. In other embodiments, asdescribed herein below, the conclusions may pertain to auxiliary factorsrelated to the likes and dislikes of the observers and/or scorers of theevents, which may be useful for determining preferences of the observerand/or scorer, such as for directed marketing research and/oradvertising purposes. Likewise, the collected data may be analyzed so asto make one or more determinations about the representation in the eventand/or of a competitor with regard to one or more sponsors and/oradvertisers. In a manner such as this, the system can make adetermination as to the return the sponsor or advertiser is or couldreceive on its investment, and may make suggestions as how to increasethat return.

In view of the above, an important aspect of the disclosure is a systemconfigured for providing an interactive, crowd-sourced commentating,judging, and/or scoring platform that is adapted for both enabling andencouraging audience engagement when participating in an athletic event,theatrical performance, and/or any other form of competitiveinteraction. Specifically, in one aspect, as can be seen with respect toFIG. 9A, a server system is provided, wherein the server is connectableto one or more associated client devices, such as one or more mobilecommunication devices, such as a cellular phone, tablet computer, laptopcomputer, smart-watch, and the like. The one or more client devices maybe configured so as to include a client application program, such as adownloadable application or “APP,” as described herein.

In particular instances, the server may be connectable to the clientdevice over a suitably configured network, such as via a wirelesscommunications protocol, such as via a cellular, RF, Wi-Fi interface, orover the Internet. Particularly, in various instances, the server systemmay include a cloud accessible server. Each of the client-apparatusesmay include at least one processor, a transceiver to communicate with acommunications network, and a display. In particular instances, theapparatus may be communicably coupled to the server system, such as overthe communications network. The connection may be such that itsynchronizes the mobile device(s) with the server, and at a time duringwhich one or more activities of the event or performance are takingplace. In such an instance, the server system may be configured forreceiving one or more of the mobile device ID(s), the user ID(s), theuser(s) information, and/or the location data for each user of the onemore client programs.

Further, the server system may also be configured to authorize one ormore users, so as to allow them to participate in, e.g., score, theevent; receive the scores inputted from the authorized users; and foradjusting the scores to produce a fileted score, as described above.Particularly, the system may be configured such that a multiplicity ofsuch apparatuses are capable of observing, displaying, and/orevaluating, voting, scoring, commenting on, and/or judging an event orcompetition, such as in conjunction with one or more other apparatuspossessed by other observers. More particularly, in certain instances,the server may be configured for collecting, collating, and/orgenerating an aggregated score, such as from the collective and/orfiltered scores of all, or a number of users, and for transmission tothe plurality of client application devices, and/or for display therebywith respect to the one or more activities of the event(s). In variousinstances, the filtering may occur so as to take account of the timingand/or location by which the score was entered, e.g., as describedabove, and/or to take into account any determined bias of a score by anassociated, authorized user. Accordingly, the server system may beconfigured for receiving user data, input or collected data orotherwise, and processing that data so as to determine the presenceand/or extent of bias in the scoring activities of various of the usersof the system.

Consequently, in various instances, the server may be configured forreceiving and processing user and/or device data, and especially forreceiving and using user entered evaluation, score, and/or bias data.For instance, as indicated, the system may include a mobile scoringdevice that includes a client application together which may beconfigured for directing data transmission, e.g., through the endogenouscommunications module of the scoring device, back and forth e.g.,between the device and the host server, e.g., via the application.Particularly, in various embodiments, the system may be configured forreceiving and transmitting data to and from a plurality of clientdevices, such as a multiplicity of communication devices, e.g., desktopcomputers and/or handheld cellular phones and/or smart watches, runningthe same or similar programming. Hence, in such embodiments, one ormore, e.g., each, of the software implementations, e.g., clientapplication programs, which may be run on a handheld communicationdevice, may be configured with a device identifier (ID), for providing aunique device identifier for the device. Additionally, as indicated, theclient application program of the mobile device may further include oneor more of a user ID of a user associated with the mobile device,information about the user, and/or location data, e.g., geolocationdata, representing a location of the user and/or mobile device, whichmay also be communicated to the server system, such as forauthenticating the user and/or the user's location.

Accordingly, in certain instances, the entered evaluation, score, and/ordetermined bias data may be pooled, aggregated, a median, mean, average,and/or variance of the aggregated scores may be determined to produceresults, and from these results data, a table or graph of evaluationsand/or scores to be included and excluded from the results pool, as setforth in FIGS. 8G and 8H, may be determined. From this data a userand/or device rating may be used to rate the scores and/or individualsentering the scores, which rating may then be used to correct thepresent and future scores entered by that user and employed by thesystem with respect thereto. Specifically, in various use models, eachclient application program may be configured to generate an interactiveuser interface that may be configured for being displayed on theinteractive display of the mobile device. In certain instances, theinteractive user interface may display one or more activities of one ormore events to be or being observed. More specifically, the client userinterface may be a graphical display for presenting a broadcast of theevent and/or a scoring matrix to the user through which one or morescores may be entered, via the user interacting with the score matrixgraphic, and thereby being input into the system.

Hence, in a manner such as this, users of the devices of the system mayevaluate or score the activities of one or more competitors orperformers engaging in the event(s). In such an instance, the evaluationor score may include a time and/or location stamp and/or judging data,e.g. scores or commentary, representing the scoring and/or judging ofthe activity by the user. In certain instances, the scoring may be inaccordance with one or more predetermined judging categories and/orscales, such as a matrix configured in the corresponding clientapplication program. The system may also be configured for receivingthird party inputs.

For instance, a management application programming interface (API) maybe employed so as to allow an event organizer to generate an event,configure the system, to set up and/or adjust weighting criteria to beemployed by the system, as well as to determine and/or modify systemparameters to better identify bias and more accurately resolveevaluation and/or score discrepancies. Additionally, the API may allowthird parties and/or third party applications to access the system so asto allow auxiliary applications and/or functionality to be joined toand/or added on to the system. For example, the event organizer mayaccess the system server remotely to set up the event, to enter eventdata, such as time, date, and place data, as well as data invitingand/or authorizing various users to be scorers, judges, competitors, andthe like. Likewise, the organizer may set up the rules for how the eventwill take place, e.g., event relevant data, how the scoring is to takeplace, how the bias filter is configured, and/or what the proximitycharacteristics will be. In various embodiments, the system may beconfigured for broadcasting the event, or portions thereof, to theassociated client devices for viewing, commenting, and scoring thereby.

For example, as described above with reference to FIGS. 3A-3F, an eventorganizer may configure the event so as to only allow users within agiven area to participate, e.g., as an evaluator or a scorer of theevent. Particularly, the client device of a prospective user of thesystem may include an identifier, such as a radio frequency identifier,RFID, or other suitable identifier by which the device may beidentified. Additionally, the device may also include a GPS, by whichthe location of the device may be identified and/or confirmed.Accordingly, the client app running on the device may access the deviceID and/or location information, and then send that data to the server,where the server will analyze the device ID, e.g., so as to identify orconfirm the identity of the user, and/or the device location and/or GPSdata, e.g., to identify the position of the user, so as to then verifyif the user is an authorized user, and/or within the prescribedproximity parameters, so as to be enabled to enter scores of the eventand/or its participants within the system, e.g., via the clientinterface, as described above with reference to FIGS. 7A-7D. Hence, eachevent may be set up to include a proximity parameter, such thatdepending on the identity of the device and where it is located, scoresmay be accepted or not be accepted. Specifically, if a prospective useris outside a determined radius, then device input will not be accepted.

As indicated, one or more additional 3^(rd) party APIs may be includedand adapted for allowing other users to make changes to and/or receivedata from the system as necessary, or otherwise determined as useful. Inparticular instances, the system may be configured for running one ormore analytics on received data, which data may then be used by thesystem or other third parties for a variety of commercially relevantpurposes, such as for targeted advertising set forth herein. Forexample, in one use model, the system may include an advertisementgenerator, where data collected by the system may be used to generate anadvertisement, which when generated may be delivered to one or more ofthe client applications of the client devices being employed by thevarious users of the system.

Accordingly, in one embodiment, the system may include an advertisementgenerator. For instance, the system may include one or more servers,such as where the server is configured to include a set of processingengines or modules, which processing modules may incorporate a contentcollector, media repository, and/or advertisement builder, a competitiveanalysis engine may also be included. Specifically, in variousembodiments, the server may be a cloud based server having a networkand/or wireless internet connection so as to communicate with one ormore recipient computing devices, which computing devices may be aclient computer, a recipient computer, a desktop computer, laptopcomputer, a tablet computing device, or other mobile computing devicesuch as a cellular phone having online or other computingfunctionalities.

In particular embodiments, the server may be associated with, eitherdirectly or indirectly, a content collector, evaluator, and/orgenerator. For instance, the system may be configured for monitoringonline usage, behaviors, and/or other activities so as to determinetheir relevancy to a given user of the system, such as an evaluatorand/or scorer. Particularly, the system may include a suitablyconfigured data-collector, such as a suitably configured applicationprogramming interface (API), web-crawler, skimmer, or other internetcontent collection mechanism, which is configured for identifying and/orcollecting content of interest to a sponsor, advertiser, eventorganizer, and/or user of the system, such as by keyword, text, and/orimage recognition data, address data, such as physical address, virtualaddress, and/or web-address or URL data, metadata, other data ofinterest to a user, and the like. Data pertinent to a sponsor,advertiser, or other user may be identified by the system, evaluated inaccordance with one or more user selectable, or automaticallydetermined, parameters, in accordance with the methods disclosed above,and once identified and determined to be relevant may be collected andstored, such as in a content repository communicably connected to thecommunications server, from which repository one or more furthercommunications, such as an advertisement may be generated. Oncecollected, the data may then be formatted and/or modified, and/orotherwise be made available as communication content, such as a media oradvertisement asset, which may be selected for inclusion into acommunication template for use in the generation of a advertisement,such as by a suitably configured advertisement builder of the system.

Such advertisements may be generated automatically by an advertisementgenerator of the system, or individually by a user, e.g., systemadministrator, in which case the system may include an advertisementbuilder along with one or more of an advertisement viewer, contentprocurer and/or evaluator, content repository, a mass distributionmodule, a communications monitor and/or responder, and/or an analyticsand reporting module. Once the advertisement has been generated, thesystem controller may broadcast or otherwise distribute theadvertisement via a suitably configured distribution engine so as todirect the distribution of the advertisement to the relevant clientdevice(s). Additionally, the system may include an evaluation engine soas to evaluate the advertisement content and/or the effectiveness of itsmessaging. The system may also include a customer care monitor, so as tomonitor user response to system advertisements and communications and/orto monitor the narrative(s) being propagated by the various users of thesystem.

Accordingly, an advertisement engine may also be included. For instance,in particular embodiments, a content and/or communications, e.g.,advertisement, generator is provided. Particularly, in one embodiment, acontent and/or communication generation system is provided, such as forgenerating content for incorporation into an advertisement. In variousinstances, the advertisement may be configured for being posted and/orpublished, such as on or at a social media platform, such as targeted tothe various users of the system. In certain embodiments, thecommunication may be an advertisement, such as an advertisement that maybe generated automatically, at real-time, and on the fly, such as topromote the commercial interests of the sponsors and/or advertisers ofthe event, or the event organizers themselves. In various instances, thecontent and/or communication generation system may include acommunications and/or advertisement generation server.

As indicated, the server may include or otherwise be in communicationwith an advertisement media repository, which repository may receive andstore content, such as media related content, such as content enteredinto the system by an event sponsor or advertiser, and/or may becontent, such as images, collected by the system itself, which whencollected can be stored in the media repository, such as forincorporation into an advertisement template of the disclosure.Accordingly, the collected content may be used for buildingadvertisement related communications. Hence, the repository may furtherreceive and store advertisement templates, which template may be in anyform useful for generating an advertisement, as well as communicationsdirected to users of the system, market influencers, general consumers,and/or the general public. Thus, the communication may be in the form ofan advertisement, memorandum, a letter, an email, a post, a comment, aTWEET®, a review, a response to a review, a sentiment, a like, adislike, an upvote, or other form by which a communication may be sentvia a social media platform, and the like.

The server may also include a communications and/or advertisementbuilding engine, which advertisement builder may be configured foraccessing the media content repository and/or for generating anadvertisement viewer, when manually building an advertisement, whichviewer may be configured for allowing a user, e.g., admin, of the systemto build an advertisement, such as by providing a dashboard by which oneor more of the advertisement template and/or the advertisement asset maybe viewed, selected, configured for integration one into the other, andmay include field indicators prompting the user for entering text orimages so as to generate the advertisement. The advertisement viewer maynot only be used for creating advertisements, such as from scratch,e.g., using a template, but it may also be used to edit suchcommunications. Accordingly, the advertisement viewer may include agraphical user interface, e.g., dashboard, which includes controls foreffectuating the building of the advertisement, e.g., for the viewingand selecting of the template, assets, adding in text to text fields,editing one or more of these fields, and the like. Although the projectbuilder may be configured for allowing the manual input of directivesfor generating an advertisement, such as via the advertisement viewer,in alternative embodiments, the project builder may be configured forautonomously and/or automatically generating a communication, such asvia direction from the A/I module of the system, whereby the systemitself may select a template of interest and one or more advertisementassets for incorporation thereby, and/or may generate requisite text tobe entered into various text fields of the template.

In particular embodiments, the auto generation configuration of theadvertisement builder may be configured for generating real-timecommunications, such as advertisements, on the fly, such as uponactivation of one or more pre-defined triggers, such as upon receipt bythe system of a keyword or key text or key image, interest ordisinterest sentiment, a geographic indicator, or other onlineinteractor, such as in response by the system in view of data collectedabout the user and/or in regard to their use of the system. Forinstance, the advertisement building system of the disclosure mayinclude a compiler, such as for effectuating the integration of thecommunications assets, images, videos, texts, and other data into therespective fields of the template, so as to build the final form of theadvertisement. As such, the compiler may be communicably associated withone or more of the advertisement builder, advertisement viewer,formatter, and/or distributor.

Hence, the advertisement building system may also include a formattersuch as for selecting and formatting the advertisement, e.g., the onlinecommunication, in an electronic format that can be automaticallyformatted, distributed, rendered, and/or viewed, such as in adistribution format based on one or more of data pertaining to one ormore identifying features of the user, keywords, addresses, and/or otherdata received by the system, e.g., in response to user input, such asdirectly input from an evaluator or scorer and/or based on data skimmedoff of that (or other) persons social media postings. Likewise, theadvertisement building system may also include a distribution programfor performing the delivery, such as for the targeted broadcasting, ofthe advertisement over the Internet to the recipient, or to the socialmedia platform of the recipient such as for posting thereby. Forinstance, the distribution may be configured for delivery to one or morespecific users, such as within the social circle of the user, or forgeneral distribution to the public at large, such as by posting on tothe event's or user's social media platform. Further, the distributionmay be autonomous and/or automatic, for delivery determined so as to beoptimized by the system, or it may be determined and/or effectuated by auser of the system.

Accordingly, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 9A, an important aspectof the system is an Artificial Intelligence (A/I) module that includesone or more of a learning or training platform or engine and ananalytics or inference platform or engine. In one instance, the learningplatform includes a processing engine that is configured for takingknown data, running a learning or training protocol on the data, anddeveloping one or more organizing rules therefrom, such as rules forweighing data and/or determining bias and/or making one or morepredictions. Likewise, the inference processing platform includes aprocessing, e.g., inference, engine, that is configured for applying therules developed by or for the learning platform and applying them tonewly or previously acquired data to generate one or more outcomesthereby, such as where the outcome may be a known or inferredrelationship, a known or predicted result, and/or a probability of oneor more outcomes, and the like. In various instances, the inferenceengine is configured for continuously running sometime prior to, during,and/or sometime after an event, and functions with the purpose ofimproving the accuracy of the event results, such as for the eventitself and/or for one or more participants thereof, such as by improvingthe accuracy of the evaluating, scoring, and/or judging, for instance,by correcting for and/or eliminating bias in the use of the system.

As indicated above, in one particular embodiment, the A/I module isconfigured for determining correlations and/or relationships between thevarious data collected by the system. For instance, in variousinstances, the A/I module may be configured for generating a datastructure, e.g., a decision tree, table, and/or knowledge graph, whereinthe various data collected by the system are uploaded into the tree,table, or graph as a constellation of data points. In such an instance,the learning engine may be configured for taking known rules todetermine known relationships between the known data points, and fromthese known data, the learning engine may be configured for inferringunknown relationships between data points to determine heretoforeunknown relationships between the data points, which in turn may be usedto determine new rules by which to determine other unknown data points,relationships between the two, and/or to make one or more predictiveoutcomes based on the known and/or learned data, such as in response toone or more queries.

For instance, the data, the relationships between the data, and thedetermined and/or inferred rules may be employed to generate a datastructure, such as a knowledge tree, table, and/or graph, and to minethe various data within the system to generate an answer to a query,such as a query related to weighting evaluations and/or determiningbias. Accordingly, a unique feature of the A/I module is its predictivefunctionality, which functionality may be implemented by a predictiveanalytics platform that is configured for performing one or morepredictive analyses on the obtained and/or generated data, such as bygenerating one or more predictive outcomes. For example, a predictiveoutcome may be in response to the query as to whether there is bias inthe system and/or with respect to one or more inter-relations thereof.

Accordingly, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 9A, in one aspect ofthe disclosure, an artificial intelligence module (A/I) may be includedin the system. For instance, in various instances, the various devicesand systems, as well as their methods of use, as disclosed herein may beemployed so as to evaluate the authenticity of a user's interactionswith the system. Particularly, the user of the system may be an eventorganizer, an official judge of the event, a fan engaged in the event,e.g., a non-official judge, a performer in the event, and the like. Insuch instances, it may be useful for the overall system to keep records,or stores, of data with respect to how the user engages with the system,e.g., with the system itself, a component of the system, another user ofthe system, or a determined 3^(rd) party factor, so as to ensure theauthenticity of the usage.

A third-party factor may be a 3^(rd) party that may or may not be usingthe system, but whom the system has determined is relevant to how one ormore other persons are engaging with or otherwise using the system. Forinstance, a third-party factor may be an agent, such as a person, who ajudge of an event and a performer in that event may have in common.

Accordingly, the third-party factor may be a person, a business, acontractual relationship, a geographical region, or anything by whichtwo entities may be determined to be related, with respect to anorganized event being hosted by the system. Particularly, the system maybe configured for determining patterns in the behaviors of the variouspeople using the system, from which patterns various relationships maybe determined, and one or more actions may be taken by the system inview of the identified relationships and/or determined patterns. Forexample, once a relationship between the various agents acting upon thesystem is identified, such as with respect to how certain judges orscorers score particular participants in an event, and a pattern withrespect to how the judge is behaving with respect to their relationshipto the participant is determined, the system may take one or moreactions, e.g., corrective measures, to account for that relationshipand/or error correct the activities of that judge or scorer, such assubjecting the scores to one or more regression analyses.

For instance, where an identified judge e.g., or other user, has apattern of scoring certain participants too high and/or scoring otherparticipants too low, then the judge's scores can be discardedaltogether, or may be discounted, such as by a bias factor, e.g.,determined by the system, e.g., the A/I module. Additionally, the systemmay store the judge's scoring patterns, as well as other data derivedfrom how the judge interacts with the system, which information may beapplied to the later activities of the judge, such as when weightingtheir future scores or other actions they take in interacting with thesystem. Such information may then be employed in evaluating the judgefor fairness, bias, and the like, as described herein, and/or to predicthow the judge will act in the future, given their past actions.

Specifically, the judge or user's engagement with the system may formregular interactions and/or patterns that may be recorded and trackedwithin the system, from which patterns the machine learning and/orinference module of the system may be employed to learn each user'sparticular pattern(s) of behavior, and determine a range of freedombehind those actions and/or predict future courses of action andoutcomes. This is useful when the user's pattern of engagement with thesystem appears to coincide or conflict with the patterns of usage ofother users of the system. Particularly, determining patterns of usageof the system is useful when determining the degree of freedom, e.g.,freedom from bias, by which one or more users is engaging with thesystem. By range or degree of freedom is meant a scale, such as from0.0-1.0, or the like, which scale represents a degree to which a user'sactions are more completely free from the influence of other factors,with respect to their engagement in the system, e.g., at the low end ofthe scale, toward the higher end of the scale which represents a higherdegree of influence shaping their behavior(s). Accordingly, in variousembodiments, any score entered into the system may be analyzed by thesystem and may include a further sub-score, such as a quality score,whereby the entered score is given a confidence score itself, whichconfidence score can be an estimate by the system as to how confidentthe system is that the entered score is free from bias. This confidencescore may then be used to appropriately weight the entered scores.

More specifically, the system may be configured for not only determiningthe presence of various factors influencing behavior, e.g., the actionstaken by the judges, performers, and/or participants in the event, suchas factors that influence the presence of bias, but as well fordetermining which factors may be leading to that influencing, and towhat degree. Further, once determined, the system, e.g., via thesuitably configured learning platform, may then be adapted to correctfor such influences, such as by the inference module increasing ordecreasing a weighting scale used to weight the connections betweenvarious influencing factors and user actions and/or outcomes of thoseactions. For instance, in such instances, when various patterns areformed, the system may learn these patterns, determine the presence ofbias, or other factors of import, and/or predict a likely manner inwhich the user will behave, and the level of confidence may be given tothe predicted outcome, such as from 0.0, not very likely to 1.0 almostcompletely certain. In certain instances, the collected data may besubjected to one or more regressive analyses, including but not limitedto a necessary condition analysis, a probability distribution, aGaussian or Markov (including Hidden Markov) Model, and/or aBurrows-Wheeler Transform, and the like.

Accordingly, when the system makes a correct prediction, the connectionbetween the initiating action and the presence of the condition, e.g.,the condition of bias, in that action, as well as the connection betweenthe action and a predicted outcome of that action, may be strengthened,such as by giving an estimation of bias and/or a predicted outcome inthe future, for the same or substantially similar circumstances, moreweight. Likewise, when a pattern is broken, less weight may be given tothe connection between the initiating action and the presence of biasand/or predicted outcome, until the old pattern is re-established and/oruntil a new pattern is formed. These changes in patterns can also beaggregated along various dimensions to group a plurality of userstogether, and/or in the contrary, a group of people interacting with thesystem together, such as in a coalition, may be used to more preciselydefine and weight patterns of engagement. In a manner such as this, thesystem may be configured to keep track of the various users of thesystem as well as their individual and/or group patterns of behavior, sothat the various identified factors that may be influencing theemergence and/or maintenance of such patterns may be identified,predicted, and employed for a plurality of different uses, such as fordetermining the presence and/or degree of bias behind one or more user'sengagement with the system, and/or for taking corrective actions, suchas to correct for such bias.

Specifically, the system may generate and employ one or more datastructures that may be queried so as to predict the answer to one ormore questions. For instance, as described in detail herein, the systemmay be configured for receiving information with regard to a pluralityof users, which information may include identifying information, socialcircle information, as well as social media engagement information.Likewise, the system may present one or more users to a series ofquestions, such as via an automated interview process, the responses towhich may be used to characterize the user and/or generate a userprofile thereof. Additionally, the system may track how the user engageswith the system, as well as the attendant data pertaining thereto, suchas time, place, number of times per day, length of time engaged, actionstake or not taken with respect thereto, who he or she messages orotherwise interacts with through the system platform, who they follow,what events they engage in, and the like.

All of this information may form data points that characterize any givenuser. These data points may then be employed as branches or nodes withina data structure, which data structure may take any suitable form, suchas a data tree and/or a knowledge or De Bruijn graph. From these variousdata points relationships between users of the system may be identified,and the connections between them may be weighted based on the number andform of the interactions between them. Hence, the more users interactwith one another in a positive manner, the greater the weighting will bebetween the various nodes that may be employed to define theirinteraction. Likewise, the more negatively the users interact with oneanother, the less (or more negative) weight will be given to definetheir interactions.

In similar manner, the more the user's interactions with the systemcomport with one or more groups of the system, e.g., model groups, themore weight those various connections will be given, and the more theuser's interactions do not comport with one or more model groups, theless weight those connections will be given. Likewise, in variousinstances, a user may make a prediction as to an outcome that actuallyoccurs, and in other instances, the predicted outcome does not occur, insuch instances, more or less weight will be given to the user whenpredicting outcomes for future events, based on his successfulprediction of outcomes of past events. Hence, where it is determinedthat external factors are in some way influencing a user's interactionwith the system, such as bias influencing a judge's inputting of scores,the system may be configured for identifying and correcting for theeffects of such external factors, such as bias.

Where outside factors are determined to be affecting a plurality ofusers' engagement with the system, such users may be grouped together bythe system, such as based on the type of outside factors by which theiruse of the system is being influenced, and in such instances, theirengagement in the system may be treated as a block and/or corrected foras a block, such as by giving the block's engagement with the systemless weight. Likewise, those whose use of the system are determined tobe free of external factors, such as bias, e.g., model users, may alsobe grouped by the system, and their engagement of the system may begiven more weight.

Accordingly, in a manner such as this, data points between the variouscategories, branches, or nodes in the data structure of the system maybe used to generate correlations between the nodes and to weight thosecorrelations so as to build a data structure thereby, such as aknowledge tree or graph, which may then be queried to determine otherrelationships not previously known and/or to predict the influence ofexternal factors affecting the usage of the system, and/or to predictand weight potential outcomes based on a collective of usage patterns ofhow users are engaging with the system. For instance, a data structure,such as a relational or hierarchical or knowledge or De Bruijn graphstructure, may be generated by the system receiving known data about thevarious users of the system, e.g., event organizers or sponsors,participants in events, formal judges of events, informal fan basedjudges, or other users of the system, and, via a suitably configureddata management system, building a structure, e.g., a tree orconstellation, of data points and drawing connections between the datapoints.

As indicated above, this data may be collected in a variety of ways,such as by system generated interviews of the users and/or systeminstigated accessing and review of user online or social media usage,e.g., collected via a suitably configured API, web-crawler and/or miningtool for mining social media, and/or other online usage data. The datato be collected may also include data pertaining to user usage of theinternet, such as through postings of texts, photos, blogs, comments,searches performed, time spent on web-pages, and other associatedmetadata through which a user produces a presence on the globalinternet, all of which data may then form various branches or nodes ofthe data structure, e.g., graph. For example, the data to be enteredinto the database, may be used to structure and populate an inferenceengine, e.g., based on the graph, which engine may be employed forsearching and/or otherwise performing queries, and may further beutilized by an artificial intelligence engine, as explained below, forpredicting outcomes. Consequently, user and/or performer data may beobtained and entered into the system in a variety of different manners,and may include the storing of information in hierarchical or relationalmodels, as well as in a resource description framework (RDF) file orgraph, and the like, as described below. Such a procedure may beperformed for a number of different users.

Once the system users have been identified, defined, characterized, andentered into the system, the users, as discussed above, may be groupedin accordance with one or more system usage parameters, and knownrelationships may be determined between the various users in the group.In particular, once the database is set up, the data collected andentered into the system, the database may then be structured, such asfor being queried or otherwise searched, such as with respect to theexistence of various relationships between data points, and/or withrespect to one or more known determined or undetermined variables. Forinstance, the number of relationships between the various users as wellas the strength of those correlations may then be determined and used toweight the known or fact based relationships. Likewise, from these knownfact based relationships, previously unknown, inferred relationships maybe determined, and weighted. In a manner such as this, a data structure,such as a knowledge graph, or other data structure may be generated soas to include both known and unknown, inferred, determined, andundetermined relationships.

Accordingly, once generated, the data structure, e.g., knowledge graph,may then be queried along a number of lines so as to make one or moredeterminations with respect to the various relationships between thevarious branches or nodes of the graph. For instance, the system may beconfigured to automatically be queried to determine if there is apattern by which one or more users are interacting with the system. Forexample, if one or more otherwise unrelated users appear to be engagingwith the system in a like manner, e.g., their scoring appears to berelatively the same, the system may flag their behavior for furtheranalysis, a deeper dive into any possible relationship between the twousers may be initiated, a source of their possible correlation may bedetermined, and from the strength of that relationship between the twousers, a score may be given so as to weight the possibility the usersmay be acting in a collective manner.

Such an interaction could evidence bias in their engagement, which maythen be identified by the system, flagged for review by the eventorganizers, and/or the system can initiate corrective measures by whichsuch bias may be corrected for, such as by lowering the weight of theircollective interaction, e.g., lowering the weight of their scoring, ordiscarding it all together, in such a manner as to eliminate the effectsof such collective usage and/or bias. In various instances, the systemmay perform such activities automatically based on its own programming,and/or in some instances another user of the system, e.g., a systemoperator, event organizer, sponsor, or the like, may initiate suchqueries, and/or a deeper dive as to how various users are using thesystem. Accordingly, in various embodiments, the system may beconfigured so as to be queried along a number of different parameters todetermine and weight a number of different answers, and thereby make avariety of different predictions. These predictions may then be given aweighted score, a confidence value, such as to the probability of beingcorrect, and based on that score, the system can self-correct so as toproperly account and/or correct for the predicted behavior of its users,such as with respect to bias.

In a typical architecture for performing such functions, such as forperforming a structured search query of a database of the system withrespect to determining bias. For instance, the system may include adatabase of events, users participating in those events, characteristicdata pertaining to the user themselves, relational data pertaining tothat user in relation to other users (or non-users) of the system, e.g.,with respect to that or other events, and characteristic data pertainingto how the user has interacted with the system, etc. in the past, e.g.,including any pattern data, as well as predictive outcome data of thepast, present, and/or future, and may include other characteristic datathe system determines is relevant to the particular question beingqueried. In such an instance, the relevant data points may be identifiedand pulled from the general database, and a localized data structure maybe built. As indicated, the data to be stored may be stored in anysufficient manner, but in some instances, the data to be stored may beencoded and/or hashed prior to storage, and then later may be looked upin accordance with a hash key.

However, any data structure may be employed for performing the search inquestion, in various instances, however, the data structure may be arelational data structure, such as a Structured Query Language (SQL)database, which may be implemented via a relational database managementsystem, or the data structure may be a hierarchical, or graph based datastructure. For instance, in one implementation, a SQL database ispresented, which database may be a table based data structure, such aswhere one or more tables form the base structure wherein data may beorganized and stored, such as in a variety of columns and rows,searched, relations determined, and queries answered in a structuredmanner. Particularly, in such an instance, SQL statements may be used tostructure, update, and search the database. In various embodiments, atable-based database may be presented, e.g., a relational databasestructure, which data structure may be searched, and used to determinerelationships from which answers to one or more queries may bedetermined. Typically, in such a data structure, identifiers, such askeys, are used to relate data in one table to that in another table.Accordingly, provided herein is a database that may be built andstructured as a structured query language (SQL) database that has arelational architecture, and may be managed by a data management system,such as a relational database management system (RDBMS). In particularinstances, a series of tables, for instance, may be employed by whichcorrelations may be made in an iterative fashion.

Specifically, with respect to whether a certain user of the system isengaging with the system, such as with respect to a particular eventand/or performer in the event, in a biased manner, a first correlationmay be made with respect to the subject's normal interactions with thesystem, as determined over a series of events, such as how well theuser's interactions correspond with the median, mean or average of usersoverall, and a first table may be formed to record this data as a firstuse model sample set. Then, a second table may be built whereby theuser's current use of the system with respect to a current present eventand/or participant in the event is tracked and compared against thecollective of current users, and the two tables can be compared with oneanother so as to determine if the user's present interactions comportwith their past use of the system, such as with respect to how theirpresent use comports against the collective.

Where it is determined that a user's present use is outside of whatwould be one or more parameters of their historical or predicted usageaverage, the system could flag the interaction as worthy of a deeperdive, e.g., subjected to a deep-learning protocol, and if necessary canbegin to look for other correlations between this user and this eventand/or participant therein so as to determine possible explanations asto why this user's present interactions our outside of their predictedbehavior. Specifically, where the data structure is a series of tables,the user's identifier or key may be searched and compared through anumber of tables for a wide variety of correlations that may bedeterminative in explaining their present, aberrant interactions. Wherea source of bias is determined to be present, the system can implement acorrective regime to account for that bias.

Accordingly, a key may be used, in this instance, to correlate thetables, which key may be accessed in response to a question, prompt, orcommand, such as why the user's present use does not comport with theirpast use of the system, or the use of the system by the average user.The key may be any common identifier, such as a name, a number, e.g., aRFID number, cellular identification number, a phone number, a licensenumber, a social security number, a chosen password, and the like, bywhich one or more of the data structures, e.g., tables, may be accessed,correlated, and/or a question answered. Hence, without the key itbecomes more difficult to access data and/or build correlations betweenthe information in one data structure, e.g., table, with that ofanother. In certain instances, the table may be a hash table and a hashfunction may be employed in search the table for correlations with otherdata structures.

As indicated, a further architecture that may be used to structure adatabase is a hierarchical data structure. For instance, in variousinstances, the database may be structured as a data tree, e.g., a suffixor prefix tree, where various data elements may be stored in acompressed, but in correlated fashion, where the various roots andbranches form divergent data points with respect to potentialcorrelations. Specifically, in such an instance, the data may be storedwithin the data structure in such a manner that the stored records areconnected with one another through relational links, such as where thevarious records are a collection of fields that store data files in achain of superior and subordinate levels of organization, such as in apyramidal or other hierarchical configuration.

In other instances, a graph-based architecture may be structured andused to determine the results for one or more queries. Particularly, aknowledge graph architecture may be employed to structure the database;so as to enhance the performance of computational analyses executedusing that database. Such analyses may be employed so as to determinewhether a given user's present use of the system comports with theirpast use and/or comports with how other users in general, e.g. theaverage user, have or are presently interacting with the system, such aswith respect to the present user's evaluating and/or scoring of a givenevent and/or performer in the event, and/or with respect to theirregular pattern of usage. Accordingly, the sophisticated algorithmsemployed herein, are adapted for structuring the infrastructure of arelational database so as to enable more efficient and accuratesearching of that database such as via performing graph based analyses,as well as for performing table or tree based analyses.

For instance, where a user of the system is evaluating and/or scoringanother user's performance in an event, a data structure may begenerated where the first user's characteristic data are used as a firstcollection of data points, and the characteristic data of a second user,e.g. the performer in the event, may be used as a second collection ofdata points, and relationships between the first and second users may bedetermined through use of one of more data structures, e.g., knowledgegraphs, tables, e.g., hash tables, pre-/suffix-tress, etc. as describedherein. Additionally, a third collection of data points may include howthe collective of present or past users are engaging with the system,such as with respect to the second user's performance in the event.

Where the first user's engagement with the system, e.g., the scores theyenter in judging the second user's performance in the event, comportwith the collective of users currently scoring the event, then thesystem may not need to take a deeper dive into determining how the firstuser may be biased for or against the second user. However, where theuser's engagement is outside of the norm, as determined by thecollective's current engagement (or the user's past engagement) with thesystem, such as by scoring the second user, e.g., performer, higher orlower than average, then the various correlations between the first andsecond user may be explored to determine if there is bias.

Where bias is determined, an even deeper dive may be performed so as todetermine the source of that bias. Such deeper dives may be performed,as indicated by generating and evaluating one or more of the searchabledata architectures disclosed herein. Sources of such bias may includeany form of relationship between the first and second users, such asgrowing up in the same neighborhood, attending the same schools orchurches or other social clubs, having the same friends in common, beingknown friends with or competitors against one another, having businessaffiliations with one another, and the like. Past interactions of eitherof the users may also be explored to determine previous patterns ofbehavior and/or to explain the nature of any presumed or determinedbias.

For instance, where the first user has previously diverged from thecollective and been found to have been more accurate than thecollective, this may be taken into account when determining if there isthe presence of bias in this present instance, or if the first user isonce again being more informed and more accurate than the collective.Specifically, various determined patterns of behavior may also be usedas data points in the searchable data structure, and where an identifiedpattern of behavior is maintained, the corresponding relationshipsmaking up that pattern may be strengthened by giving them more weight,but where those patterns are broken, less weight may be given to thoserelationships forming that pattern, and a query as to why the patternwas broken in this instance may then be explored by the system. Once ithas been identified as to why a given pattern has been broken, thesystem may implement a corrective measure to account for the effects ofthat broken pattern on the overall functioning of the system. In amanner such as this, the system is configured for becoming increasinglymore accurate over time.

Consequently, in one aspect, a device, system, and method of using thesame to build a searchable, relational data structure, such as describedherein, is provided. Particularly, in one instance, the device, systems,and methods disclosed herein may be employed so as to generate and/orotherwise collect data, such as data pertaining to the users of thesystem, including identification data, characterization data, and usagedata. Accordingly, in one embodiment, methods for building andstructuring a searchable database are provided. For example, in a firststep, data may be collected, cleaned, and then be prepared for analysis.In various embodiments, the data may be labeled and/or categorized, andmay then be structured into a searchable data architecture, such as aknowledge graph, table, or tree-like structure. And once the database isstructured, it may then be populated with data, in accordance withdetermined or inferred relationships. Such relationships may benotional, fact, or effect based.

More particularly, in certain instances, a machine learning protocol, asdisclosed herein, may be employed so as to determine relationshipsbetween data points entered into the database. Such relationships may bedetermined based on known facts, and as such the learning may besupervised learning, e.g., such as where known factors may be used tolabel, categorize, and store data, such as location, interaction, socialengagement, relationship, and/or usage and other related data. In otherinstances, the learning may be inferred, such as in an unsupervisedlearning.

For instance, in certain instances, the data to be stored may not beknown, relationships between the data may not have been pre-determined,and the query to be answered may also not have been otherwiseidentified. In such instances, the data to be stored is unsupervised,and as such, patterns in data to be stored and their relationships, suchas commonalities between data points, may be determined notionally, andonce determined such patterns may then be used in forming thearchitecture that structures the searchable data architecture.Particularly, where a user's interactions with the system, e.g., scoringof a performer, breaks a pattern, the system may explore relationalcharacteristics of the user and/or his or her use of the system so as todetermine what the pattern was broken and/or to correct for its effects,or to simply determine a new pattern of behavior is emerging, in whichinstance, a deeper exploration may not be warranted. For example, aknown sequence of patterns may be used to infer that if events A and Bin a known sequence may be followed by event C such that if event C doesnot happen as predicted, a flag is set off for initiating a deeperexploration of the nature of the causes of the flagged event. However,where upon a first round of exploration, it is discovered a new patternof behavior is being established, the flag may be removed and a deeperexploration as to the causes of the new pattern formation can be butneed not be explored.

As described above, in certain instances, at the heart of the platformmay be a generated data structure, e.g., a SQL, hierarchical, or graphbased database architecture, which may be generated on the fly by, e.g.,an API, skimmer, or crawler of the system, retrieving data points from aplurality of sources, and populating those data points into a suitabledata structure from which relationships and/or correlations between thedata points may be made. First, when populating the data structure knownfacts may be populated, then known relationships may be determined, andfrom these known facts and known relationships, otherwise unknown factsand/or unknown relationships may then be determined. Such data pointsmay include any user pertinent information, such as: user enteredinformation, user determined information, such as with respect to howthe user interacts with the system, in particular, or how they interactwith the internet generally, information derived from the user's socialmedia, user posted information, such as texts they send, commentary theypost, photos they upload, comments they respond to, web-pages they visitand for how long, likes they make, up or down votes they make, purchasesthey make, video's or blogs they view, searches they perform, who theyfollow or are friends with on social media, and the like.

Additionally, user location data may be determined and used to determinehow close or far the user is from an event they are participating in,viewing, or otherwise engaging with. The user may be tracked by theiruser ID, their cellular ID, RFID, GPS, Cellular tower triangulation,their Internet Protocol ID, etc. In various embodiments, the system maytrack the user's online interactions, travel, locations visited, whetherengaging in the application or not, while being online or offline, andthe like. Further, friends, associates, and acquaintances of the usermay be identified and their use of the system or internet generally,whether engaging with the system or not, may be identified and trackedand used as data points in determining a user's pattern of usage,trends, and sources of possible correlations, relationships, bias, andthe like. Such persons may be identified directly by the user, by theuser's online interaction with them, via the application or socialmedia, via tagging, and/or via facial or voice recognition based onbeing in a posted image or voice recording in association with the user.

In such a manner as this, the user's internet presence and/or socialnetwork may be leveraged and used as data points in the construction ofa data structure, such as a knowledge graph, from which correlations andrelationships may be determined, for instance, between various users ofthe system, and/or third parties, for example, by determining how thesevarious entities interact with one another, within and outside of theapplication. The type, quality, and/or quantity of these relationshipsmay then be determined by the system, the results of which may beemployed so as to determine a predicted outcome, such as in response toa given query, such as for determining the potential presence of bias ofone user of the system with respect to another.

Once the data structure is built, it may be populated with known andinferred facts and relationships determined and/or weighted, the datastructure may then be queried. Specifically, the system may be directed,such as by a system administrator or event organizer as to what thequery is or should be, such as from a list of known query types, so asto perform a supervised search query, or the system itself may generatea query automatically when it identifies certain patterns that areworthy of greater explanation, and as such an unsupervised query mayalso be instigated. More specifically, the various data points enteredinto the data structure may be labeled and categorized, e.g., based onknown patterns, and a given search query may be performed with respectto the identified labels and categories, that have previously beendetermined to be important to the functioning of the system. This isuseful when the system has been primed in such a manner that it knowswhat it is looking for. In other instances, the A/I module, e.g.,inference module, may itself identify patterns, commonalities, and/orother elements that form a relationship from which one or more labelsand/or categories may be generated automatically by the system itself,and a query can be performed based on system generated prompting withrespect to these unsupervised factors. This is useful when it is notnecessarily known what exactly is being looked for.

In particular, in various instances, the machine learning or inferencemodule, as described herein, may be adapted to recognize how an outputwas achieved based on the type and characteristics of the inputsreceived. Specifically, in various instances, the present system may beconfigured to learn from the inputs it receives, the relationships itdetermines, and the results it outputs, so as to learn to drawcorrelations more rapidly and accurately based on the initial input ofdata received and/or the types, quality, and quantitates of therelationships it is able to correlate. Likewise, once the A/I machinelearns the behavior, e.g., of one or more users of the system, or one ormore third parties with respect thereto, the learned behavior may thenbe applied to a second type of data, such as an inference engine, thatis used to infer other various relationships and/or to predict theanswer to one or more unknown variables, or heretofore unknownrelationships.

There are several different types of relationships that can bedetermined. For instance, relationships may be determined based on whatis known, e.g., they are fact based, and/or they may be determined basedon the known effects of those facts, e.g., they are effect based, e.g.,logic based; or they may be determined based on inferences, e.g.,relationships that are unknown but determinable. Specifically, arelationship between two subjects, locations, interactions, and/or otherrelevant conditions of one or more users of the system, or third partieswith respect thereto, may be inferred based on various common factsand/or effects observed between them. As described in great detailherein, these previously unknown but inferred facts and/or relationshipsmay be determined and/or used to build and structure a database that maybe searched and used in predictive models, such as by generating a datastructure, e.g., a structured database, as disclosed herein. Forexample, known, e.g., fact, or effect based, or inferred data points mayalso generated, or otherwise entered into the system, and may be used togenerate one or more nodes, e.g., a constellation of nodes, which may beused to build a data structure that may be used in the determinationand/or weighting of relationships, which in turn may be employed inanswering one or more queries through searching the data structure.

Particularly, various data points may be used to compile and build adatabase that may then be structured in a number of different ways, suchas in a hierarchical, e.g., XML, relational, e.g., Structured QueryLanguage, SQL, and/or a resource description framework (RDF). The datapoints to be stored in the database structure may be characterized in aplurality of different manners, such as, in one embodiment, with respectto being a subject, a predicate, and an object. Specifically, withrespect to an RDF, a particular form of a knowledge graph may begenerated such as where the data points to be fit within the datastructure may be organized to form nodes within a graph, where each nodeand the relationship between the various nodes will have properties bywhich they can be placed into one of these three categories, e.g., as asubject, a predicate, or an object, based on a given query to beanswered. Such structures, therefore, may be composed of tripletscontaining a subject, object, and the relationship between them termed:a predicate, where the subject always points via the predicate to theobject.

More particularly, each node within this proposed data structure, e.g.,data graph, may represent a subject or an object, which may be relatedto one another by a predicate. Each object and subject may furtherinclude and/or may otherwise be characterized via one or moreproperties, which may be defined as predicates that characterize arelationship between the two. Hence, each triplet represents a statementof a relationship between the things denoted by the nodes that it links.For example, the assertion of an RDF triplet indicates that somerelationship, indicated by the predicate, holds between the nodesdenoted by the subject and the object. In this manner, data points maybe populated into the database and may be structured as nodes in thegraph in a manner such that the data points may be populated with one ormore characteristic properties that more fully define and/or classifythat node.

Accordingly, when building a data structure between data elements ornodes, known facts, as well as their known properties, are firstemployed by the machine learning platform (ML) to determine knownoutcomes, during which process the ML platform, e.g., learning ordeep-learning engine, thereby learns the patterns of behavior betweenthe nodes and their relationships to one another, such as in a trainingprocess. Hence, first data is collected, from a variety of sources, asdisclosed herein, and structured, such as in a relational, hierarchical,and/or graph based database, or the like, such as where each subject andobject are relatable through properties, such as predicates. Then thesystem may be trained to search the database, e.g., based on the nodesand/or their relationships, and to make a prediction to receive aresult, where the answer to the query is previously known, and theresult obtained is compared to the actual result. Where the actualanswer is the same as the predicted answer the relationships between thevarious nodes implemented in determining the result may then bestrengthened.

This training may take place over a wide range of sample sets, until anacceptable accuracy level has been achieved. For instance, a trainingprotocol may be implemented, such as where various known subjects andobjects are related by known properties, where the system is trained toidentify the properties between them, so as to learn the relationships,and once learned are then given a selection of data points where therelationships, although already known, must be determined by the system,and the accuracy is measured, until a specified accuracy level has beendetermined. Particularly, the system may be subjected to a deep learningprotocol. Once appropriately trained, e.g., via a deep learningprotocol, then the ML platform, may be given data points from whichunknown relationships need to be determined, e.g., inferred, and unknownoutcomes predicted.

Specifically, once the ML platform has learned the expected patterns ofrelationships, e.g., behaviors, with respect to known data points andrelationships, it may then develop “inferred” rules by which it mayclassify and label new or unknown data points so as to determine andaccount for otherwise unknown relationships, so as to thereby classifyand label and/or otherwise define the heretofore unknown data points,their properties, and relationships, which may then be classified andlabeled. In such an instance, when the expected results are achieved,such as with respect to the user engagement with the system, the systemstatus quo may be maintained, but when these new data points evoke abreakdown in patterns of relationships and/or expected outcomes, e.g., auser acts in an unexpected way or an unexpected result occurs, then asystem alert may be triggered and a deeper exploration may be initiated.

Additionally, once the knowledge graph architecture, or other datastructure, has been constructed, the inference engine may employ thatknowledge graph to answer one or more queries of the system, and/or tomake one or more predictions with respect thereto. Because the data tobe considered is so prolific, such inferences could not otherwise bemade except by such a suitably trained system. For instance, the A/Imodule may configure the data structure, and implement one or morefunctions with respect thereto, such as via one or more known orpreviously unknown facts and/or relationships, e.g., via the machinelearning protocols disclosed herein, and thereby predict variousconsequences with respect thereto. Further, once the data structure isgenerated, e.g., by a suitably configured data management system, it cancontinually be updated and grown by adding more and more pertinent datainto the knowledge structure, such as data received from any relevantsource of information provider pertaining to the subject(s) underexamination, and building more and more potential nodes and/orrelationships.

In various embodiments, the system may be configured for beingaccessible by system administrators, event organizers, sponsors, users,performers, and/or other third parties having the appropriate accesspermissions. In such an instance, the user may access the A/I module,e.g., via a suitably configured user interface, upload pertinentinformation into the system and/or determine the relevant nodes by whichto answer an inquiry, e.g., such as is there bias with respect to how agiven user is engaging with the system and/or does their behavior withrespect thereto fit within an established and/or otherwise expectedpattern of behavior.

The ML and inference engines of the system have many potential uses. Incertain embodiments, the system may be configured for promoting andmeasuring fan engagement, such as fan engagement when watching orotherwise participating in a competition or performance. As such, thesystem may be configured for providing a platform by which a spectatoror other observer of an event, such as a sporting event, or a singing ordancing competition, and/or the like may be enabled to more intimatelybe involved in the event, such as through use, as described herein, oftheir desktop or mobile computing device. Specifically, in oneembodiment, a downloadable application is provided, which downloadableapplication provides a graphical user interface (GUI) through whichinterface the user may more intimately involve themselves in the event.More specifically, the GUI may be configured to present a dashboard tothe display of the computing device, through which display the user maybe enabled to interact in the event environment in a more meaningfulway.

For instance, in one instance, the dashboard may present a display ofthe activities taking place in the event, e.g., real-time, such as instreaming fashion. The real-time display of the event and its activitiesmay be the same or similar to what is being broadcast, such as from anetwork or media content communications channel, or it may be from imageand/or sound content that is captured by another device, such as fromanother fan who is engaging with the system in viewing and recording theevent, or the content may be streamed from a point of view image/soundcapturing device, e.g., digital camera, worn by the event participantthemselves. Such media content may be transmitted to a server of thesystem, from one or more of these various sources, the data may becleaned, edited, and broadcast, streamed, downloaded, or otherwiseprovided back to the various users of the system substantially real-timefor their viewing. In various instances, the user may select from whichcontent source they wish to view the event, such as by toggling back andforth between viewing options, such as point of view, e.g., of thecompetitor, streaming from an Official feed from a camera of the event,or from a mobile computing device of an observer of the event that hasbeen configured for recording and transmitting the event, such as toother users of the system, e.g., via the APP.

In addition to a viewing platform, where the event is some form of acompetition, such as among competitors, the dashboard may present ascoring platform, as described herein above, whereby the user may scorethe individual competitors in the event and/or the event itself. In sucha manner as this, the user is invited to participate more closely in theevent. Likewise, the dashboard may present the running-time scores beingreceived by the other various users of the system so as to allow eachuser of the system to see how well each competitor is doing and/or howtheir scoring compares with a group of other users of the system.

The dashboard may also provide a platform through which users maymessage other users of the system, such as through substantially instantmessaging, SMS, text messaging, i-messaging, sending of sounds, photos,videos, and/or may allow for the user to instantly send messages, texts,sounds, videos, etc. to one or more, e.g., all of their social mediaplatforms, such as for posting thereby. Likewise, the dashboard mayallow users to interact with or otherwise respond to the messaging ofothers using the system, such as through likes or dislikes, up or downvoting, or otherwise replying to messages posted across the system. Suchmessaging may be sent system wide or to one or more subgroups of thesystem, such as where the user has selected and formed a sub-group ofsystem users with whom to share messaging and/or media content back andforth with each other.

As indicated, in one aspect, the system may be configured for detectingand/or correcting for bias amongst the various users of the system, suchas with respect to the evaluating and/or scoring function of the system.For instance, participants of the system may include the performers ofan event or competition, official judges, who are responsible forofficially judging and/or refereeing the event, and general users of thesystem, such as fans, who have elected to participate in the event as an“un-official” judge, evaluator, or scorer of the event. In variousinstances, the system may be configured for receiving the judging and/orscoring content from both official and non-official judges, aggregatingand compiling the content, as well as running various statisticalanalyses thereon so as to determine a mean score as well as one or moredegrees of variance therefrom, and to determine the degree to which anyscorer's entered score or evaluation varies from the collective averagescore or evaluation. This data may then be transmitted back to the usersof the system in raw or cleaned up form.

For example, as discussed in detail herein, if a given scorer entersscores that fall outside of a selected acceptable range of variance, thescores and/or scorer themselves may be flagged for further, e.g., deeperanalyses. Particularly, the scorer and/or their entered scores may beanalyzed for bias. Bias may be determined in a variety of ways, however,in particular instances, as described in great detail above, bias may bedetermined by subjecting the scorer and/or their scores for furtheranalyses by the ML and/or Inference modules for further analyses,whereby with respect to the ML module, the scorer's past and presentengagements with the system as well as their past and/or presentengagement with other users of the system, either on the system orthrough other determined context, e.g., other social media engagements,may be examined so as to determine possible patterns of behavior thatcould be affecting the degree of freedom in their scoring behaviors.

Once one or more patterns of behavior have been determined, theInference engine may then run a predictive analysis on the pattern dataso as to make one or more predictions as to what and/or how the user'sscore and/or behavior should be, such as if it were free from bias, andif the system determines the behavior is not free from bias, one or morecorrective measures may be implemented. A variety of corrective measuresmay be implemented so as to correct for possible bias and to ensurebetter accuracy in scoring the performers and/or their performances. Forinstance, the score may be reduced or increased by a determined amount,such as by a corrective factor, the score could be grouped together withother similar, e.g., outlying, scores and averaged, the score may bezeroed out, or even just discarded, and the like. The score may also beused to weight the other scores of the user, such as based on the user'sability to match with the collective, or with other judges, such that ifa scorer is particularly more accurate in scoring performers, then theirscore may be given increased weight even when it does not presentlycomport with a present collective score.

In part, as described above, the function of the software and/orhardware of the A/I module is to generate and/or modulate the timeoutwindow, such as to determine when an event and/or performance isbeginning, when it is ending, and/or when the timeout window is to beclosing and/or when it is to be closed. As such, the A/I module may beconfigured for determining what scores will be counted, which scoreswill be weight adjusted, and which scores will be completely discounted,such as with respect to determined or predicted bias and/or due to theformulation and functioning of the timeout window parameters. Forinstance, the start of an event or performance may be manually orautomatically determined by the system, such as when a competitor, e.g.,an athlete, begins a routine or takes an action initiating acompetition, such as catching a wave, stepping on to a performanceplatform, a diver climbing on to a diving platform, and the end of anevent may be determined manually or automatically determined by thesystem such as when the competitive athlete ends a routine or takes anaction ending the competition, such as kicking out of a wave, steppingoff of the platform, or entering the water, and the like. In a mannersuch as this the system, e.g., with the assistance of the A/I module,may be configured for determining and enforcing the timeout windowparameters, and/or for determining the scoring criteria, such as withrespect to the evaluations, votes, opinion, results, and associated dataof the system.

For example, there are many challenges faced when providing a crowdsource scoring apparatus and system to organizers and to observers of anevent. One of the key challenges is ensuring that when a user scores aparticular performance in a competition including several performancesby several different competitors, that score is properly attributed tothe correct performer and to the correct performance of that performer.Overcoming this challenge ensures that the user's score is accuratelycounted, and that the performer's score is accurately calculated. A goodexample of a situation where these challenges arise is in a surfingcompetition, where the event includes a plurality of heats, and eachheat includes a plurality of competitors performing a variety amaneuvers in alternating performances in each heat, all of which isbeing evaluated and/or scored by the judges and observers or other usersof the system with regard to the event.

More particularly, where a first Surfer in a heat catches a First Wavein that heat and begins to perform various maneuvers, users of thesystem will begin scoring the performance. In such an instance, thescores being entered are, therefore, directed to the appropriate scoringslot for that surfer, in that heat, and for that particular performancewithin that heat. This is challenging in its own right, but when tens orhundreds or thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands or evenmillions of observers are all entering scores for that performer forthat particular performance, it becomes exponentially more difficult.Making things even more difficult is when Surfer 2 catches their FirstWave, where scores by the observers are still being entered into thesystem with regard to Surfer 1, but now scores are also being entered injudgement of Surfer 2's performance.

The present system, therefore, is configured for determining whichscores belong to which performance being performed by which performer inwhich heat, so as to ensure the integrity of the system and the eventoverall. More particularly, the system is configured to ensure that amajority, e.g., all, relevant scores get attributed to the right slotsso as to be appropriately counted. In this instance, the system isconfigured to ensure that during the transition period between the endof the performance of Surfer 1 and the beginning of the performance ofSurfer, scores being entered in evaluation of Surfer 1 are accuratelyattributed to Surfer 1, and those being entered in evaluation of Surfer2 are accurately attributed to Surfer 2. Such attribution can also bebroken down more discretely such that scores entered to evaluate eachmaneuver of a performer in a performance get correctly attributed tothat sub-part of the performance, e.g., that maneuver, in a series ofmaneuvers being performed by that performer. The system is furtherconfigured for adjusting and accounting for situations where an observermis-attributes their entry into the wrong category, such as where theydid not see the first wave caught by the performer, or the firstmaneuver performed, such as when they began evaluation the performancelate, or where there is a technical glitch, or for whatever reason thescores are being delayed in their entry.

The system has several configurations that are adapted for overcomingthese challenges. As explained above, one such set of mechanisms is tohave a system administrator manually determine set-points, creatingwindows whereby scores during each window period get slotted to themanually determined scoring slot that has been set for that performer inthat heat for that performance and with respect to the maneuverperformed. Alternatively, this may be performed automatically by thesystem, such as in accordance with preset timing and/or scoring regimes.Additionally, this may also be performed in a fluid and/or dynamicmanner, such as by the artificial intelligence module of the system.

For instance, in a manual method, a physical human, or interfacesimulating a human like action, may open and close “windows” duringwhich observers could provide subjective input, in this example scores,into the system. In such an instance, a person or process/devicesimulating a person, e.g., a smart camera or video stream usingArtificial Intelligence) will set start/stop markers for which anobserver or device may enter in input. This would ensure observer ordevices are only submitting input for those waves or maneuvers that arecurrently active and insures accuracy and correct counting. Inparticular, for example, a person or device may be interacting orwatching an event, a surfer stands up on the wave and the person and\ordevice signals an action (“SURFER UP:A”). This action then triggers awindow to be open for user or device input. When the surfer hascompleted the wave or fallen, the person\device signals n second action(“SURFER DOWN:A”). This action would signal or indicate that the surferhad completed the action and scores may or may not be allowed after thisperiod (or in another case a timeout window may be utilized to allowinput following a “SURFER DOWN:A” event of 30 seconds. At that point thecounter record would be increased by +1 for “SURFER A” and once SURFER Acatches a second wave, the person or device would repeat the process;however, all inputs would now be counted towards SURFER A—WAVE 2.

Additionally, an automatic method for overcoming these challenges mayalso be implemented. In one implementation, the automatic method mayproduce a result that is similar to result achieved by the manualmethod. However, the index or counter is increased leveraging softwarebased interfaces that may or may not be hardcoded or otherwise embeddedinto the physical device/system or scoring devices. These softwareinterfaces can utilize REST calls, API or similar technology orstandard, so as to send messages to the software that maintains an indexor counter record to accurately place a score or user input into thecorrect “slot” as outlined in the manual method. This configuration maybe implemented in any device with or without a motor that simulates orcreates an event that could be used to score or engage fans.

For example, a machine may be used in a manner so as to produce orsimulate a condition that can then be transmitted to the system and usedat set-points for evaluation and/or score entry and attribution.Particularly, a good example of this is in the context of an artificialwave generating machine, which machine functions for the purpose ofcreating a wave for surfers in a competition. In such an instance, inorder to generate a wave, the wave machine will need to be started,demarcating the beginning of a potential performance, and will then needto be stopped, thereby demarcating the end of the performance.Accordingly, in such instances where automated mechanisms areimplemented in a manner that initiates the beginning of an event, andfurther implemented in a manner that demarcates the ending of an event,the machine or a sensor associated therewith may communicate thebeginning or the end of the event, such as via a wired or wirelesscommunications network to the scoring system herein, which may then beemployed in the evaluation and/or scoring regime in the mannersdescribed herein. Particularly, in one instance, the machine, in thisinstance a wave generating machine, when running may be configured forcontinuously sending software messages (RESTful APIs) to the remotescoring system (as disclosed herein) that keeps track of an index orcounter that is used to properly slot users scores, such as based on theinput generated by the machine, such as with respect to starting andstopping wave production.

Specifically, when the wave generation machine starts it opens a windowfor scores to start being opened, and when it stops it closes a windowfor scores and increases index or counter as a result. This action maythen trigger a window to be open for user or device input. Likewise,when the machine has stopped, or a surfer (or other competitor in adifferent competition) has completed the maneuver, performance, and/oror has fallen, the machine signals a second action (“stop”). This actionthen signals or indicates that the competitor has completed the action,at which point the counter record would be increased by +1 for “SURFERA” and once SURFER A catches a second wave, the person or device wouldrepeat the process however all inputs would not be counted towardsSURFER A—WAVE 2.

Likewise, these challenges may be overcome via a suitably configuredartificial intelligence module of the system. For instance, the A/Imethod may be implemented in a similar manner as the above to achievethe same or similar results, and in many instances better, than those ofboth the manual and automatic methods disclosed above. However, the A/Imodule uses software and A/I algorithms to maintain the index andcounters of the waves. In such an instance, the A/I module may beconfigured to open and close the event window for which scores or inputare desired. In one such instance, once the evaluation, e.g., scoring,window is open, users may then enter scores into their client devices,which scores may be sent to the computer system that receives inputslike a messaging system (often referred to as a “Message Bus”) and thesystem properly slots the users scores into the correct slot. Forexample, the system itself or an event organizer may open an event forscoring. User's may then score or submit their opinions and the scoresfor the duration of the event. All scores or inputs are then processedthrough the A/I system and automatically placed into the right place.Alternatively, as described above in detail, the A/I module may beconfigured for opening and closing a timeout window based on thevelocity of scores, e.g., where scores may be entered prior to theestablishment of the scoring window, where the mean or average or medianscore determines which scores will eventually be counted, or the timeoutwindow may be opened or closed based on system detectable user movementand/or by facial recognition. Of course, a plurality of these mechanismsmay be employed for the purpose of increasing accuracy.

In various instances, the timeout window may be configured to bedynamic, such as where its parameters may change as new data is receivedand processed by the system over the course of an event and/orperformance. Hence, the timeout window may be configured initially,e.g., by the event organizer, per event, but may change during thecourse of the event, or a sub-portion thereof. In certain instances, afacial recognition (FR) module may be included, where the FR module isconfigured for assisting the system in determining the identification ofparticipants, e.g., competitors, judges, and/or scorers, and/or otherindividuals within their social network, such as for determining bias,and in certain instances, the FR module may be employed to ascertain thebeginning and/or ending of an event and/or one or more stages of theevent.

Particularly, the FR module may be configured so as to facilitate theidentification of when an action or event has begun and/or concludedand/or enough time has been given to collect the inputs of the crowd soas to close the timeout window, e.g., when a surfer catches a wave, thewindow may be opened, and when he kicks out it may be closed, and mayremain closed for the time period it takes him to paddle back out, or towhen a second surfer catches the next wave, in which instance, onlyscores entered with respect to that second wave will be entered into thesystem.

The A/I module and/or its predictive analytics may further be configuredfor determining the appropriate weighting for the scores entered intothe system for an event and/or performance. In certain instances, theweight given to the scoring may be increased or decreased based on thehistory of the judge or scorer, such as where a scorer or judgeconsistently enters scores that fall within the mean, their scores maybe given extra weight, e.g., the better a scorer performs the more theyare rewarded and/or the more their future scores are weighted. However,where a scorer or judge consistently enters scores that fall outside ofthe mean, their scores may be given less weight. Accordingly, in variousinstances, a scoring and/or weighting matrix may be generated, such asin the form of a lookup table whereby the system may automaticallydetermine present and/or future weights based off of past weightsemployed by the system. These weighting settings may be adjustedautomatically by the system itself or may be adjusted by a user havingadministrative authorization, such as by an event organizer, e.g., on anevent-by-event basis or globally.

In another aspect of the disclosure, the application may be employed soas to generate an advertisement, such as an advertisement relevant tothe fan and/or based on their engagement with the system and/or theirlocation. For instance, as described above, the A/I module may beemployed so as to generate a profile of a user. The profile may be alist of properties, qualities, and/or characteristics that describe theuser and/or their engagement with the system. As such the profile may begenerated by a plurality of different methods, such as by providing aninterview to the user and saving their responses, furthercharacteristics may be determined based on their engagement with thesystem, specifically, or social media, generally, such as by what theypost, how and when they comment, the images they upload, and/or theactivities surrounding the images they post, and the like. Furthercharacteristics may be determined based on how the user uses the systemparticularly, or the internet generally, such as by what searches theyperform, who they follow, what pages they visit, the time spent on suchpages, purchases they make and the like. Additional characteristics maybe defined by where the user is located, the places they visit, such ason a routine basis, and/or the places they or their friends havevisited.

In various instances, once these characteristics have been determined,the A/I module may determine various correlations between thesecharacteristics, such as between the things or products the user likes,the location where the user is located, and the various differentsponsors of the system, so as to generate a real-time advertisement thatis generated in a manner to be specifically pertinent to the user, whileat the same time generating interest in the event sponsors.

Once the score has been entered and appropriately weighted by the A/Imodule, the scores may be presented for display at the user interface.Particularly, FIG. 9B shows a user interface in which the user may viewthe competitors in relation to each other by weighted score in a mobileweb browser. As seen in FIG. 9B, the user has the option to view awindow displaying a competitive scoreboard on a mobile web browser. Aportion of the screen displays information about the competitive eventincluding but not limited to the name of the event, the event sponsor,the event category (e.g., GROM, junior men's′, senior men's′, juniorwomen's′, senior women's), and the heat. For each competitor listed onthe scoreboard, the scoreboard displays the competitor's representation,e.g., jersey color, the competitor's individual scores per event, andthe competitor's overall score. This screen may be interactive providingthe user a range of screens that may be selected from by interacting,e.g., pressing or touching, the screen in an interactive area of thescreen. In this instance, score data may be displayed in a number ofdifferent formats, such as averages, means, ranges, standard deviations,rates, curves, graphs, weights, biases, individual or collective scores,averages between members selected to be in a group, and the like. Hence,data from both individual's and teams may be collected, collated, anddisplayed individually or collectively.

Likewise, FIG. 9C shows a user interface to be used by official judgesof a competition to score competitors. For example, official judges ofan event can utilize the client application to score competitors of theevent, such as on a touch screen tablet, as seen in FIG. 9C, or desktopcomputer, and the like. The screen shows a user interface by whichjudges can enter official scores of each competitor, e.g., demarcated bya selective representation like figure, emoji, animation, jersey, color,shape, and the like. This screen may display the current time, a scoringlegend, fields in which a judge can enter individual scores for eachcompetitor, an option to view the scoring screen in full screen mode,and an option to print a score sheet in paper form. Once the individualscores are entered, the average of the highest number, e.g., two, scoresfor each competitor may tabulated by the application and displayed inthe right-most score field for each competitor. Particularly, given thatthe user, in this instance a judge, of the client application is anofficial judge and the device to be used is a smart tablet, the user mayscore competitors of an event by selecting portions of the screen forwhich to enter a score. The user may also choose to print a paperversion of the scoreboard via a print button. The user may also chooseto view the scoreboard, or other screen, in full or partial screen modevia a full/partial screen button. The user may also view the currenttime, and/or time left in the heat and/or event.

FIG. 10A shows a user interface in which the user can configureengagement with the application by setting up a user account and userprofile with the client application. As seen in FIG. 10A, the user canconfigure engagement with the client application by setting up a userprofile with the client application. The user may enter personalinformation including name, e-mail address, phone number, and gender.The user may also have the option to upload profile photos associatedwith the account. Given that the user of the client application hascreated an account, the user may choose to create a user profileassociated with the account. The user may enter personal informationincluding, but not limited to: name, email address, phone number,gender, social media contacts, and the like. The user may then select aprofile photo associated with the account.

FIG. 10B shows a user interface in which the user can configureengagement with the client application by activating and deactivatingvarious application settings. The user of the client application maychoose to configure settings of the application as seen in FIG. 10B. Theuser may activate and deactivate display settings related to the abilityto view live events or past events. The user may also choose to activateor deactivate voice scoring. The user may also choose to score the eventanonymously. Additionally, the user may choose to score an event as acompetitor, a judge, or both. Particularly, once the user of the clientapplication has created an account, the user may choose to configureuser engagement by customizing application settings. The user maychoose, e.g., by touching the touch screen, to enable or disable theability to view spectator events within a particular proximity via atoggle switch. The user may also choose to enable or disable the abilityto view previously completed events, e.g., via the toggle or switch. Theuser may further choose to enable or disable the ability to view a videoor audio streaming of an event, such as by engaging the relevant toggleswitch. Where set up, the user may choose to enable or disable theability to score an event by voice recording via a toggle switch.Further, the user may choose to enable or disable the ability to be ananonymous user to other client application users. Additionally, the usermay choose to be identified in the client application as a competitor, ajudge, or both by pressing a radio button.

Likewise, FIG. 10C shows another user interface whereby the user canconfigure engagement with the client application by activating anddeactivating various settings. For instance, the user of the clientapplication may configure engagement with the client application byactivating or deactivating settings, such as through a touch screen orvoice directed interface, and may include the activations of locationservices, push notification settings, sound notification settings, andvibration notification settings, which is seen in FIG. 10C. The user mayalso choose to link their user account with other applications includingPANDORA®, FACEBOOK®, and INSTAGRAM®. Particularly, the user may chooseto configure user engagement by customizing application settings, maychoose to enable or disable the ability to for the client application touse the user's location, to transmit push notification alerts to theuser, to transmit breaking news alerts, to generate video and/or soundnotifications, and/or to generate vibration or other tactilenotifications. In various instances, the user may choose to allow theclient application the ability to interact and sync with otherapplications to increase user engagement including PANDORA®, FACEBOOK®,INSTAGRAM®, and/or other online social media platforms.

FIG. 10D shows a user interface in which the user can view informationabout the events the user has signed up to score. Specifically, once theuser of the client application has decided on one or more events toscore, the user may view a window displaying various information aboutthe events including the name and location of the event, which is shownin FIG. 10D. On this screen, the user may also select the days in whichthe user will score competitors of the event. FIG. 10E shows a userinterface in which the user may choose to engage with internationalevents. The user of the client application may choose to engage inevents all over the world, as seen in FIG. 10E. The user may use theclient application to score events including world champions,international events, European Football matches, such a Premier league,World Cup soccer, the Olympics, and other world-class events.Particularly, the user of the client application has the option to viewinternational events, and may choose to view a plurality of scoreboards.For instance, to view a scoreboard for all participants representing aparticular country or region, the user may press on the country orregion of interest to filter competitors by country or region sorted byscore in ascending order. To view a scoreboard of all participants, theuser may press on an “ALL” button to view all competitors sorted byscore in ascending order to view all competitors in an eventirrespective of country.

FIG. 10F shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about an event. In the user interface shown in FIG. 10F, aportion of the screen may be used to display information about a currentcompetitor including name, user score, crowd score, and score given byofficial judges. Another portion of the screen may be configured todisplay the competitor's social media contacts, such as an INSTAGRAM®username, live video stream of the event, or competitor photo. Theparticular social media to be selected can be chosen from a rolling tabof social media instances. FIG. 10G shows a user interface in which theuser may view more information about the event as well as a real-timecountdown displaying the remaining amount of time to score a competitorbefore the entered score is given a lower weight or eliminated.

In FIG. 10G, a portion of the user interface may display informationabout the current competitor including the competitor's name, thecompetitor's social media, e.g., INSTAGRAM®, username, and the countrythe competitor is representing if the event is international. Anotherportion of the screen is configured to display in real-time the amountof time remaining to score the current competitor without algorithmicdeductions or elimination. If the competitor is scored outside of thiswindow, the A/I “weight” module may give the user's score less weight ordiscard the entered score. A third portion of the screen may beconfigured to accept scores from the user either via a numeric keypad orthrough voice recognition. See FIG. 10H.

FIG. 10H shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about the current competitor as well as score the eventusing voice recognition. For instance, once the user has selected aparticipant to score, the user will be led to a screen for which toenter a score via a numeric keypad or voice recording. Once the user haseither numerically entered or recorded the score for a participant, theuser may view the entered score on the screen. The user may also chooseto remove the entered score from the screen by pressing a button (e.g.,an X button to close out the score, perhaps to re-enter a new score).FIG. 10I shows a user interface in which the user may view moreinformation about an event including competitor scores and competitorinformation. In the user interface shown in FIG. 10I, a first portion ofthe screen may be configured to display advertisements during eventintermissions. A second portion of the screen may be configured todisplay information about the next competitor in the event. A thirdportion of the screen may be configured to display a scoreboard showingthe event or wave number, the score(s) entered by the user, the crowdscore(s), and the score(s) given by the official judges. The user mayalso choose to view on one or more of the screen portions thecompetitor's INSTAGRAM® username, live video stream of the event, thenext competitor in the event, or competitor photo.

FIG. 10J shows a user interface in which the user has shared scores of aparticular competitor using social media, such as on INSTAGRAM®. In theuser interface shown in FIG. 10J, a user has shared an INSTAGRAM® postof the scores of a competitor scored by the user. The information in thepost may include the name of the client application, the location of theevent, the scores entered by the user, the average crowd score, and thescores entered by the official judges of the event. Particularly, oncethe user has shared the scores of a competitor on social media, e.g.,FACEBOOK®, INSTAGRAM®, or the like, the client may view and customizethe post generated by the client application on the social mediaapplication.

FIG. 11A displays a page navigation layout of the client application.FIG. 11A displays a page navigation layout of the client application inwhich the user may swipe in various directions to get to various pagesof the client application. From various screens of the application, theuser may choose to navigate to other screens either by pressing buttonsor swiping up, down, left, or right on a smart phone.

In various instances, as can be seen with respect to FIG. 11B, thesystem may include a Representational State Transfer platform (REST).For instance, the server maybe configured implementing a stateless,client server, cacheable communications protocol, such as in conjunctionwith a secured Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) protocol. Forinstance, an event to be entered into the system may be configured as aREST event, which may be uploaded into the system via comma separatedvalues file, that is configured to allow data, e.g., event organizationdata, to be uploaded and/or saved within a database of the system in atable structured format, such as an Excel spreadsheet, e.g., but with a.csv extension. Accordingly, as discussed with respect to FIG. 9A, invarious instances, an API may include a REST interface, such as for thegeneration of an event, such as by an organizer, as described above.

In an additional aspect, in various embodiments, the system may includea training module, which training module may be configured for teachinga user to use the system, and may further be employed on training thesystem to receive and analyze user results, which result may be informedby the training process.

The contents of the articles, patents, and patent applications, and allother documents and electronically available information mentioned orcited herein, are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety tothe same extent as if each individual publication was specifically andindividually indicated to be incorporated by reference. Applicantsreserve the right to physically incorporate into this application anyand all materials and information from any such articles, patents,patent applications, or other physical and electronic documents.

The methods illustratively described herein may suitably be practiced inthe absence of any element or elements, limitation or limitations, notspecifically disclosed herein. Thus, for example, the terms“comprising”, “including,” containing”, etc. shall be read expansivelyand without limitation. Additionally, the terms and expressions employedherein have been used as terms of description and not of limitation, andthere is no intention in the use of such terms and expressions ofexcluding any equivalents of the features shown and described orportions thereof. It is recognized that various modifications arepossible within the scope of the invention claimed. Thus, it should beunderstood that although the present invention has been specificallydisclosed by preferred embodiments and optional features, modificationand variation of the invention embodied therein herein disclosed may beresorted to by those skilled in the art, and that such modifications andvariations are considered to be within the scope of this invention.

The invention has been described broadly and generically herein. Each ofthe narrower species and sub generic groupings falling within thegeneric disclosure also forms part of the methods. This includes thegeneric description of the methods with a proviso or negative limitationremoving any subject matter from the genus, regardless of whether or notthe excised material is specifically recited herein.

Other embodiments are within the following claims. In addition, wherefeatures or aspects of the methods are described in terms of Markushgroups, those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention isalso thereby described in terms of any individual member or subgroup ofmembers of the Markush group.

That which is claimed is:
 1. An interactive, crowd-source communicationplatform for evaluating one or more of an activity and a participantperforming the activity in an event, the platform comprising: aplurality of client application programs distributed to a correspondingplurality of mobile devices having an interactive display, each clientapplication program being associated with one or more of a mobile deviceidentifier (ID) of a mobile device executing a corresponding clientapplication program, a user ID of a user associated with the mobiledevice, user information, and location data representing a location ofthe mobile device, each client application program being configured todisplay, on the interactive display of a corresponding mobile device,one or more events of the activity and to display an interrogatory forreceiving an input from the user evaluating the activity and/or aperformer of the activity, the input including a time stamp andevaluating data representing the evaluating of the user and/or activityby the user in the corresponding client application program; and aserver system connected with the plurality of client applicationprograms via a communication network and being synchronized with aperformance of the activity, the server system receiving one or more ofthe mobile device ID, the user ID, the user information, and thelocation data for each user of each of the plurality of clientapplication programs, the server system being further configured toreceive the evaluating data and time stamps from the authorized users,weigh the evaluating data based on one or more of: the mobile device ID,the user ID, the user information, the location data, and the timestamp, and generate an aggregated evaluation from one or more receivedevaluated or weighed evaluated data for transmission to each of theplurality of client application programs for display in the interactivedisplay with the one or more events of the activity.
 2. The platform inaccordance with claim 1, further comprising an event organizer portalconnected with the server system via the communication network, theevent organizer portal being generated by a client computer to allow anevent organizer user to configure at least one of the one or more eventsfor display by the plurality of client application programs.
 3. Theplatform in accordance with claim 2, further comprising a data storeconnected with the server system for storing one or more of the mobiledevice ID, the user ID, the user information, the location data, thetime stamp, data pertaining to the event, data pertaining to theparticipant in the event, and online use data for one or more of theuser and the participant.
 4. The platform in accordance with claim 3,wherein the datastore further stores the evaluated data and the weighedevaluated data, wherein the evaluated data comprises a score, and theweighted evaluated data comprises a weighted score.
 5. The platform inaccordance with claim 4, wherein weighting of the scores is performed bythe server system and includes: determining a time of input of eachscore according the synchronization with the performance of theactivity; and filtering the scores according to the time of input. 6.The platform in accordance with claim 5, wherein the weighting is basedat least partially on data pertaining to the user, data pertaining tothe participant in the event, and online use data for one or more of theuser and the participant.
 7. The platform in accordance with claim 6,wherein the server system further evaluates the weighting and adjust thescores based on the evaluated weighting to produce a final score.
 8. Theplatform in accordance with claim 7, wherein the server system isconnected with each of the plurality of client application programs viaa REST interface.
 9. The platform in accordance with claim 8, whereinthe client application program is configured for receiving andpresenting at a graphical user interface of the client application alive-stream of the event.
 10. The platform in accordance with claim 9,wherein the graphical user interface is configured for presenting aninput for receiving one or more text based messages from the user.
 11. Acomputer program product comprising a machine-readable medium storingmachine instructions that, when executed by a server system comprisingone or more programmable processors, cause the server system to performfunctions comprising: transmitting, over a communication network fromthe server system to a graphical user interface of a downloadableapplication running on a mobile device, a live stream of an event, theevent being participated in by a plurality of competitors, and thegraphical user interface having an input for receiving a message from auser viewing the event via the application on the mobile device;receiving, by the server system over a communication network from themobile device, an input from the user, a user identifier, and a mobiledevice identifier, the input having a time stamp associated therewithand being received at the mobile device via the user interface presentedby the application running on the mobile device; authenticating, by theserver system, the user based on the user identifier and the mobiledevice identifier to verify that the user is authorized to score theactivity so as to produce an authorized user; retrieving, from adatabase coupled to the server system, associated information for thecompetitors and/or authorized users, the associated informationcomprising one or more of an identity of the authorized user, anidentity of the competitors, authorized user and/or participant onlinedata, information regarding the physical location of the mobile device,the time stamp, and one or more inputs from one or more authorizedusers; aggregating a plurality of inputs from a plurality of authorizedusers engaging with respective applications running on respective mobiledevices so as to produce an aggregated result; and transmitting, overthe communication network for presentation to the user via the userinterface on the mobile communication device, the aggregated result. 12.The computer program product in accordance with claim 11, whereinauthenticating the user further includes: determining a location of themobile device associated with the user identifier; and determiningwhether the location is within the defined geographical area.
 13. Thecomputer program product in accordance with claim 12, wherein the inputfrom the user includes a score judging a competitor in the event, andthe aggregating includes aggregating a plurality scores received by aplurality of authorized users.
 14. The computer program product inaccordance with claim 13, wherein the server system further evaluateseach of the plurality of the scores for bias, and if bias is determinedadjusting the scores so as to produce an adjusted aggregated result. 15.The computer program product in accordance with claim 14, wherein theevaluating is based at least partially on one or more of the time stamp,location data, and authorized user and/or participant online data, 16.The computer program product in accordance with claim 13, wherein theevaluating further includes weighting one or more of the plurality ofscores, and adjusting the scores based on the weighting to produce theadjusted aggregated result.
 17. A method for scoring a participant in acompetitive activity, the method comprising: receiving, at a mobiledevice one or more user inputted preliminary judgements of theparticipant in the competitive activity being performed within a definedgeographical area, the one or more preliminary judgements being inputtedinto an input interface presented to the user on a graphical display ofthe mobile device, the input interface formed by a template by whicheach participants' activities are to be judged by the user, and beingreceived at the mobile device via the graphical display presented by anapplication that runs on the mobile device; and generating, by theapplication running on the mobile device user authentication datacomprising one or more of: a user identifier, a mobile deviceidentifier, and location data representing a location of the mobiledevice; transmitting, over a communication network by the mobile deviceto a server system, the user inputted preliminary judgement and the userauthentication data; verifying, by the server system, using the userauthentication data one or more of: an identity of the user, an identityof the mobile device, and/or whether the mobile device is within thedefined geographical area based on the location of the mobile device,the verifying resulting in authenticating one or more users; accessing,by the server system, a database storing an identity of the competitiveactivity, an identity of the participants in the competitive activity,an identity of each authenticated user judging the competitive activity,a list of actions by which each participant's actions are to be judged,and the preliminary judgements inputted to the template by eachauthenticated user judging the competitive activity; evaluating, by theserver system, each of the preliminary judgements to produce anevaluated judgement; aggregating, by the server system, the evaluatedjudgements to generate a final judgement; and transmitting, from theserver system over the communication network for presentation to theuser via the user interface on the mobile communication device, thefinal judgement.
 18. The method in accordance with claim 17, furthercomprising evaluating, by the server system, the one or more preliminaryjudgements inputted by the user for bias.
 19. The method in accordancewith claim 18, further comprising adjusting, by the server system, theuser's inputted preliminary judgement to render a final judgement of theparticipant's activities by the user.
 20. The method in accordance withclaim 19, wherein the judgement comprises a numerical score.